E 


SKisylosin the uin tea  Song 


PAUL  VERLAINE 
His  Absinthe-Tinted  Song 


'La  beaute  de  I'ceuvre  rachtte  la 
difformite  de  I'ouvrier." 

Catulle  Mendes. 


with  ^decuond  from  hid  work, 

arranged  and  iranMaUd 

ram  the  French 

b 


RALPH  FLETCHER  SEYMOUR 

THE  ALDERBRINK  PRESS 
CHICAGO 


Copyright  1916 

BY 

RALPH  FLETCHER  SEYMOUR 


TO  THE   MEMORY 

OF  ONE  LONG  SINCE  ASLEEP 

AND   YET  WHO  LIVING  LOVED  THE  POETS*   SONGS 

JUDGE  JONATHAN  C.  APPLEGATE 

THIS   BOOK  IS  DEDICATED  WITH  LOVE 

AND   REVERENCE 

BY  HIS  SON 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Paul  Verlaine 3 

POEMS    SATURNINE 

To  Eugene  Carriere 43 

MELANCHOLIA 

I.     RESIGNATION       ..!.........  44 

II.     NEVERMORE 45 

III.  AFTER  THREE  YEARS 46 

IV.  Vow 46 

V.     LASSITUDE 47 

VI.     MY  FAMILIAR  DREAM 48 

VII.    To  A  WOMAN 48 

ETCHINGS 

I.     PARISIAN  SKETCH 49 

III.  MARINE 50 

IV.  EFFECTS  OF  NIGHT 50 

V.    GROTESQUES 52 

SOMBER  LANDSCAPES 

I.     SETTING  SUNS 54 

II.     TWILIGHT  OF  MYSTIC  EVE 54 

III.  PROMENADE  SENTIMENTAL 55 

IV.  VALPURGIS  NIGHT,  CLASSIC 55 

V.    AUTUMN  SONG 57 

VI.     THE  SHEPHERD'S  HOUR 58 

VII.    THE  NIGHTINGALE 59 

CAPRICES 

I.    WOMAN  AND  CAT 59 

III.     SONG  OF  THE  INGENUES  .     .    .    .    .    .    .  60 

V.     MONSIEUR  PRUDHOMME 61 

[ix] 


PAGE 

SUB  URBE 62. 

SERENADE 63 

A  DAHLIA 64 

NEVERMORE 65 

IL  BACIO  (The  Kiss) 65 

IN  THE  WOODS 66 

MARCO 67 

FETES  GALLANT 

MOONLIGHT 71 

PANTOMIME 71 

ON  THE  GRASS 72 

THE  WALK 72 

THE  PROMENADE 73 

IN  THE  GROTTO 73 

THE  INGENUS 74 

CORTEGE 74 

THE  SHELLS 75 

SKATING 76 

FANTASTICS 78 

CYTHERE 78 

AFLOAT 79 

THE  FAUN 80 

MANDOLINE 80 

To  CLYMENE 81 

LETTER 81 

INDOLENTS 83 

COLUMBINE 83 

THE  FALLEN  CUPID 85 

SOURDINE 85 

COLLOQUY  SENTIMENTAL 86 

THE  GOOD  SONG 

I.     The  morning  sun  makes  warm  and  golden,  too  91 

II.     All  grace  and  all  light 91 

III.  In  her  ruche-bordered  dress  of  green  and  gray  92 

IV.  Since  dawn  awoke  and  sunrise  now  is  here     .  93 
V.     Before  thou  takest  flight,  pale 94 

VI.     The  white  moon 95 

[x] 


PAGE 

VII.     The    landscape    from    the   curtained    window 

square 95 

VIII.     A  saint  in  her  bright  halo 96 

IX.     Her  right  arm,  in  a  gesture  amiable  and  sweet  97 

X.     Fifteen  long  days  to  come,  and  six  weeks  gone  97 

XI.     This  hard  proof  soon  will  have  an  end     .     .  98 

XII.     Go,  song,  on  wings  wind-blown 99 

XIII.  As  yesterday  they   talked,  our  elders  wise     .  99 

XIV.  The  fireside  and  the  lamplight's  level  ray     .  100 
XV.     Almost,  I  fear,  if  truth  be  said 101 

XVI.     The  noise  of  the  taverns,  and  the  black  mud 

of  the  sidewalks 102 

XVII.     Is  it  not  so?    Despite  what  others  say     .     .     .  102 

XVIII.     These  stormy  times  serve  to  remind     .     .     .  103 

XIX.     So,  it  shall  be  a  day  of  summer,  dear     .     .     .  104 

XX.     I  went  by  paths  where  danger  hides     .     .     .  104 

XXI.     Winter  has  gone:  the  balmy  light  indeed     .     .  105 

ROMANCES  WITHOUT  WORDS 

FORGOTTEN  AIRS 

I.     This   is   the  languorous  ecstasy     ....  109 

II.     I  vaguely  guess,  across  a  murmur  drawn     .  109 

III.     It  weeps  in  my  heart 1 10 

V.     The  piano,  kissed  by  a  hand  soft  and  frail     .  1 1 1 

VI.     Behold  the  dog  of  Jean  Nivelle     .     .     .     .  in 

VJI.     How  sad — how  sad  my  heart  today     .     .     .  112 

VIII.     In   the  interminable 113 

IX.     The  shadow  of  trees  in  the  vaporous  stream, 

fog-kissed 114 

BELGIAN  LANDSCAPES 

WALCOURT 115 

CHARLEROI 115 

BRUSSELS  (Simple  Frescos,  I.  and  II.)     .     .     .     .  117 

HORSES  OF  WOOD 118 

MALINES 119 

WATER  COLORS 

GREEN 120 

[xi] 


PAGE 

SPLEEN" 120 

STREETS 121 

WISDOM 

I 

VII.     The  false  fair  days  that  shown  all  day,  my  weary 

soul 125 

IX.     Wisdom  of  Louis  Racine,  how  I  envy  it     .     .     .  125 
X.     No!     'Twas  Gallician — Jansenist — this  century 

glad 126 

II 

I.     O  my  God,  thou  hast  wounded  me  with  love     .  127 

III 

III.  Hope  shines  as  doth  a  wisp  of  straw  in  the  stable  128 

IV.  See,  a  calm  orphan,  I  am  come 129 

V.     A  great  weariness 130 

VI.     The  sky  is  just  beyond  the  roof 130 

VII.     I  know  not  why 131 

IX.     The  sound  of  a  horn  sobs  toward  the  wood     .  132 

X.     Our  bodies — how  they  make  my  heart  expand     .  132 

XIII.     Long  rows  of  hedges  stretch  away     .     .     .     .  133 

XV.     The  sea  is  fairer 134 

OF  OLD  AND  RECENTLY 

OF  OLD 

PROLOGUE 137 

PIERROT 137 

KALEIDOSCOPE 138 

INTERIOR 139 

ART  OF  POETRY 140 

THE  CLOWN 141 

ALLEGORY 142 

THE  INN 142 

CIRCUMSPECTION 143 

VERSES  TO  BE  SLANDERED 144 

[xii] 


PAGE 
II 

II.    LANGUOR 145 

IV.  LANDSCAPE 145 

VI.    THE  POET  AND  THE  MUSE 146 

VIII.    A  ROGUE 147 

IX.     MADRIGAL 148 

RECENTLY 

PROLOGUE 148 

LOVE 

BALLAD 153 

PARSIFAL 154 

EVENING  THOUGHT 154 

LUCIEN   LETINOIS 155 

III.     O  woman!  prudent,  wise — calm  enemy     .  155 
V.     I  have  a  mania  for  love.    My  foolish  heart 

is  weak 156 

XVIII.     Doest  thou  recall  in  paradise,  dear  soul      .  156 

PARALLELLY 

DEDICATION 161 

ALLEGORY 162 

THE  FRIENDS 

I.     ON  THE  BALCONY 162 

VI.  SAPPHO 163 

HARLOTS 

I.  To  THE  PRINCESS  ROUKINE 164 

III.     CASTA  PIANA       165 

REFERENCES 

II.  FALSE  IMPRESSION 166 

III.  OTHERS 167 

IV.  REVERSIBLES 168 

V.  TANTALIZED 169 

VI.     IMPROBABLE,  BUT  TRUE 170 

VII.  THE  LAST  TEN 170 

[  xiii  ] 


PAGE 

MOONS 

I.     I  wish,  that  I  may  kill  you,  O  time  that  lays 

me  waste 171 

II.    AFTER  THE  MANNER  OF  PAUL  VERLAINE    .  171 

III.     EXPLANATION       172 

THE  LAST  FETE  GALLANT 172 

POEM  SATURNINE 173 

THE  IMPUDENT 174 

THE  IMPENITENT 175 

BALLAD  OF  THE  LIFE  IN  RED 177 

HANDS 178 

PIERROT  GAMIN 180 

CAPRICE 181 

HAPPINESS 

VI.     So  very  old  already 185 

X.     Fantastic  "chance"  that  wrecked  me,  without 

sense  or  rhyme 185 

XXV.     You  ask  of  me  some  verses  on  "Amour"     :    .  187 

XXXI.     Immediately  after  the  sumptuous  Salutaris     .  188 

SONGS  FOR  HER 

II.     Companion,  savory  and  good 191 

XIII.     Brunette,  or  blonde 192 

XX.     You  trust  the  signs  of  the  coffee  grounds     .     .  193 

XXIII.     I've  had  no  luck  with  womenkind     ....  193 

XXV.     Once  I  was  mystic,  but  it  could  not  last     .     .  194 

ODES  IN  HER  HONOR 

V.     When  peacefully 199 

XIX.     They  tell  me,  Sweet,  you  are  untrue     ....  200 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 203 

NOTES                                                                         .  207 


[xiv] 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Paul  Verlaine Facing  page      3 

Moonlight 71 

The  Promenade "         "109 

The  Walk "         "153 

Fantastics.  "         "     191 


The  four  photogravures  are  from  paintings 

by  Edmund  Dulac,  and  are  used  through 

the  courtesy  of  L Illustration,  Paris. 


PAUL  VERLAINE 


w 


PAUL  VERLAINE 


THE  MAN 


ANDERING  from  lupanar  to  lupanar,  and  from 
wine-shop  to  wine-shop,  he  seems  to  have  stag- 
gered out  of  the  pages  of  Petronius — some  vague,  in- 
definite creature,  half  beast  and  half  man — a  veritable 
satyr — and  who,  in  the  glitter  of  modern  Paris,  fared 
as  fatuitously  as  in  a  fable. 

Indeed,  well  might  he  be  likened  to  the  mythical  old 
Eumpolus,  the  drunken  brawling  poet  of  the  Satyricon, 
reappearing  after  so  many  centuries,  with  a  fresh  stock 
of  mock-heroic  verses  and  amplifying  in  some  dingy 
cafe  of  the  Quartier  Latin,  his  tale  of  the  Ephesian 
matron. 

His  life  from  early  youth  appears  to  have  followed 
the  course  of  a  Rake's  Progress,  as  though,  during 
adolescence,  he  had  chosen  Hogarth's  hero  for  model. 
And  to  what  depths  this  primrose  path  finally  led  him 
— to  a  felon's  cell,  an  exile's  garret,  and  the  pauper's 
bed  of  death. 

Let  us  look  at  this  singular  genius  in  one  of  his 
favorite  haunts.  It  is  the  year  1 893.  A  basement  cafe, 
Place  St.  Michel,  Paris.  The  air  is  fetid  with  tobacco 
smoke,  mixed  with  the  pungent,  acrid  odor  of  absinthe. 
It  is  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Some  Parisian  night 
birds,  souteneurs,  piles  de  joie,  and  the  like,  have 
dropped  in  to  moisten  their  gullets  and  look  for  prey. 
At  a  table  in  the  center  of  the  room  a  group  of  young 

[3] 


4  Paul  Verlaine 

men  are  sipping  bocks  and  petits  verres  and  listening  to 
the  rabelaisien  ejaculations  of  a  drunken  man  who 
looks  to  be  sixty-five  years  old  but  who,  in  reality,  is 
not  yet  fifty.  The  drunkard  is  Verlaine — the  listeners 
some  of  his  self-styled  disciples.  But  the  master? 

"A  face,"  to  use  the  words  of  Jules  Huret,  "like  that 
of  a  wicked  angel  grown  old,  with  a  thin  untrimmed 
beard  and  abrupt  nose;  his  bushy,  bristling  eyebrows 
resembling  bearded  wheat,  hiding  deep  set  green  eyes; 
his  wholly  bald  and  huge  long  skull,  misshapen  by  enig- 
matic bumps — all  these  give  to  his  physiognomy  a  con- 
tradictory appearance  of  stubborn  asceticism  and 
cyclopean  appetites."  He  is  dressed  in  a  cheap  ill- 
fitting  suit  of  gray,  evidently  of  English  make.  His 
cane  and  a  greasy  hat  are  lying  beside  him.  His  linen, 
if  such  it  may  be  called,  appears  to  have  been  resur- 
rected by  a  ragpicker — a  chiffonnier  of  the  Quartier — 
and  sold  to  some  ambulatory  Hebrew  vendor  who  in 
turn  passed  it  on  to  Verlaine  for  a  few  sous. 

He  is  drinking  absinthe.  The  wan,  purplish  light 
shed  by  the  gas  jets  from  the  walls,  mingled  with  the 
more  ruddy  glow  from  a  large  oil  lamp  hanging  above 
the  group,  throws  into  his  glass  some  rays  of  iridescent 
splendor.  Half  curiously,  half  questioningly  his 
sunken,  glowing  eyes  peer  into  the  greenish  opalescent 
liquid.  The  look  is  that  of  a  man  not  altogether  cer- 
tain of  his  identity — the  fixed  gaze  of  a  somnambulist 
taking  on  a  puzzled  expression  at  the  moment  of 
awakening.  Well  might  he  question,  for  into  that 
devil's  chalice  he  had  poured  all  his  youth,  all  his  for- 
tune, all  his  talent,  all  his  happiness,  all  his  life. 

The  group  had  been  discussing  literature  earlier  in 
the  night,  as  always.  Poets  had  been  dragged  by  their 
feet,  so  to  speak,  tossed  in  imaginary  blankets  or 
exalted  beyond  the  gods.  Then  the  hated  bourgeois 
were  driven  into  the  arena  where  they  were  martyred, 
individually  and  in  groups,  with  all  the  ingenuity  of  a 


The  Man  5 

band  of  Bohemians — or  Apaches.  The  night  wearing, 
they  had  turned  to  that  subject  with  which  men  fre- 
quently (if  not  habitually)  regale  their  empty  cups  and 
stimulate  senses  already  jaded  by  drink — to  the  subject 
of  sex.  And  the  master,  with  a  nonchalance  altogether 
Gallic,  was  giving  vent  to  obscenities  that  would  have 
made  blush  a  haberdasher's  manikin,. 

In  such  a  manner  were  Verlaine's  evenings  usually 
spent  at  this  period.  It  was  about  this  time  that 
Edmund  Gosse,  the  English  writer,  met  the  poet.  "I 
was  looking,"  says  he  in  French  Profiles,  "for  that 
vaster  lepidopter,  that  giant  hawkmoth,  Paul  Verlaine 
.  .  .  who  uncoiled  his  proboscus  in  the  same  absinthe 
corollas,"  as  other  of  the  butterfly  creatures  of  tinkling 
rhyme.  It  was  late  at  night  when,  with  a  party  of 
friends,  the  poet  had  been  sought  in  vain  at  his  familiar 
haunts.  Suddenly  the  word  was  passed  that  he  had 
been  seen  at  the  Cafe  Soleil  d'Or.  No  Verlaine.  But 
"where  I  sat,  by  the  elbow  of  Moreas,"  says  Gosse : 
"I  was  opposite  an  open  door,  absolutely  dark,  lead- 
ing down  by  oblique  stairs,  to  a  cellar.  As  I  idly 
watched  this  square  of  blackness,  I  suddenly  saw  some 
ghostly  shape  fluttering  at  the  bottom  of  it.  It  took 
the  form  of  a  strange  bald  head,  bobbing  close  to  the 
ground.  Although  it  was  so  dim  and  vague,  an  idea 
crossed  my  mind.  Not  daring  to  speak,  I  touched 
Moreas,  and  so  drew  his  attention  to  it.  "Pas  un  mot, 
pas  un  geste,  Monsieur!"  he  whispered,  and  then,  in- 
structed in  the  guile  of  his  race,  insidias  Danaum,  the 
eminent  author  of  Les  Cantilenes  rose,  making  a  vague 
detour  toward  the  street,  and  then  plunged  at  the  cellar 
door.  There  was  a  prolonged  scuffle  and  a  rolling 
down  stairs;  then  Moreas  reappeared  triumphant; 
behind  him  something  flopped  up  out  of  the  darkness 
like  an  owl, — a  timid,  shambling  figure  in  a  soft  black 
hat,  with  jerking  hands,  and  it  peeped  with  the  inten- 
tion to  disappear  again." 


6  Paul  Verlaine 

Sherard,  another  English  writer,  thus  describes  the 
glimpse  he  had  of  Verlaine  as  follows:  "My  first  sight 
of  this  great,  simple,  beautiful  poet  and  child  was  in 
the  basement  of  a  cafe  .  .  .  where  there  used  to  be 
singing,  and  where  the  poets  gathered.  Verlaine  was 
drunk  that  night  and  as  usual  was  dressed  in  rags.  He 
had  a  false  nose  on  his  face  (for  it  was  carnival  time) 
and  he  was  piping  on  a  little  tin  whistle.  The  spectacle 
had  the  terrible  comedy  touch  of  Aristophanes.  It  was 
tragedy  made  grotesque.  The  man  had  the  head  and 
face  of  Socrates,  and  here  we  saw  Socrates  playing  the 
buffoon." 

Such  was  the  appearance  of  Paul  Verlaine  at  the 
period  of  his  greatest  renown.  A  singular  character 
indeed,  but  in  every  respect  conforming  to  the  accepted 
idea  of  a  true  poet — the  cicada  of  life's  short  summer, 
with  no  thought  for  the  future  or  care  of  the  present, 
piping  his  haunting  melodies  on  the  warm  air  and  fall- 
ing dead  at  the  roadside  before  the  first  frost.  Pauvre 
Lelainf 

To  write  of  Verlaine,  the  man,  one  must  first  call 
to  aid  those  men  of  science  whose  vocation  is  that  of 
dealing  with  pathological  subjects.  These  savants  ex- 
perience no  difficulty  in  placing  such  a  character  in  the 
proper  category. 

Even  a  pseudo-scientist,  one  such  as  Max  Nordau, 
might  be  permitted  to  give  expert  (?)  testimony.  Let 
us  examine  the  prisoner  (or  poet!)  on  trial  for  his 
reputation : 

The  Prosecutor:  "Dr.  Nordau,  what  in  your 
opinion,  is  the  mental  responsibility  of  the  subject  now 
on  trial?" 

Mein  Herr,  Dr.  Max  Nordau:  "He  is  suffering 
from  dementia — he  is  a  paroxysmal  dipsomaniac. 
Moral  insanity,  however,  is  not  present.  The  subject 
sins  through  irresistible  impulse.  He  is  an  Impulsivist." 


The  Man  ^ 

The  Prosecutor:  "Are  there  any  other  phases  of 
this  malady?" 

Mein  Herr,  Dr.  Max  Nordau:  "Yes,  morbid  in- 
tensified eroticism.  The  subject  is  what  scientific  men 
call  a  circulaire,  that  is,  he  is  a  victim  of  that  form  of 
mental  disease  in  which  states  of  excitement  and  depres- 
sion follow  each  other  in  regular  succession.  Circu- 
laires  are  condemned  by  the  very  nature  of  their 
affliction  to  be  vagabonds  and  thieves.  Verlaine  has 
been  a  vagabond  all  his  life." 

The  Prosecutor :  "Are  there  other  symptoms  of  this 
mental  malady?" 

Mein  Herr,  Dr.  Max  Nordau:  "Many.  Most  of 
Verlaine's  poetry  is  mere  grimoire.  His  language  is 
often  that  of  babes.  He  can  not  properly  connect  an 
adjective  with  a  noun  to  save  his  life." 

Further  testimony  on  the  part  of  the  witness,  Dr. 
Nordau,  elicits  the  fact  that  there  are  some  poems  in 
Verlaine's  repertoire  that  are,  after  all,  really  Kosher. 
For  instance,  there  is  that  little  song  of  only  fifty  words. 
It  is  called  Chanson  d'Automne.  Merely  a  gust  of 
October  air  sharpened  in  the  gathering  shadows  of 
early  twilight  and  blowing  through  the  scant  brown 
foliage  of  a  forest  tree.  But  the  sigh ! — 

"Les  sanglots  longs 
Des  violons 

De  V automne 
Blessent  mon  cceur 
D'une  langueur 

Monotone." 

Is  there  anything  in  literature  to  rival  it?  Is  it  not 
worth  many  pages  of  so-called  scientific  writing?  Dr. 
Nordau  confesses :  "Even  if  literally  translated  there 
remains  something  of  the  melancholy  magic  of  the 
lines,  which  in  French  are  so  rhythmical  and  full  of 


8  Paul  Verlaine 

music."  Then  there  is  the  poem  in  La  Bonne  Chanson 
beginning : 

"Avant  que  tu  ne  t'en  allies/' 

and  that  other  world  known  poem  in  Romances  Sans 
Paroles,  the  first  stanza  of  which, 

"II  pleure  dans  mon  cceur 
Comme  il  pleut  sur  la  ville. 
Quelle  est  cette  langueur 
Qui  penetre  mon  cceur?" 

has  wept  in  so  many,  many  hearts.  Well  may  Dr. 
Max  pause  in  his  senseless  tirade  against  Decadents  to 
proclaim  these  poems  the  faultless  pearls  among  French 
lyrics. 

But  as  to  Nordau's  characterization  of  Verlaine,  all 
had  been  said,  and  better,  by  Lombroso,  from  whose 
book  "The  Man  of  Genius"  Nordau  filched  without 
stint.  As  to  Verlaine,  one  can  not  discover  a  poet  with 
a  surgeon's  scalpel  or  the  chart  of  a  neurologist. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  endeavor  to  justify  Verlaine's 
faults  of  character.  Indeed,  he  makes  no  effort  to  ex- 
cuse himself.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  continually  debas- 
ing himself,  but  the  psychological  reason  is  not  far  to 
seek,  for  it  has  its  origin  in  a  kind  of  Mosochism. 

Drink  was  Verlaine's  besetting  sin.  This  habit  he 
formed  early  in  life.  Writing  of  drunkenness  in  his 
Confessions,  he  says :  "This  absinthe !  What  horror, 
when  I  think  of  those  days  (his  early  manhood)  .  .  . 
and  of  time  not  so  remote  ...  I  repeat  in  all  shame 
I  shall  have  later  to  tell  of  many  absurdities  (and 
worse)  due  to  the  abuse  of  this  horrible  drink;  this 
abuse  itself,  source  of  folly  and  of  crime,  of  idiocies 
and  of  shame.  The  governments  should  suppress  this 
absinthe — and  why  not?" 


The  Man  9 

Truly  his  life  was  steeped  in  I'herbe  sainte.  During 
his  latter  days  (save  when  in  some  hospital)  he  seldom 
drew  a  sober  breath.  The  deep  melancholy,  the  sad 
languors,  the  frightful  ennui,  the  stormy  scenes  with 
friends  or  with  his  numerous  mistresses,  all  these  were 
due  to  drink.  The  estrangement  with  his  wife,  his 
vagabond  wanderings  with  Arthur  Rimbaud  and  his 
subsequent  imprisonment  at  Mons  were  due  to  the  same 
cause. 

When  sober  the  poet  was  kindly,  tractable  and  good 
natured  and  had  the  faculty  of  making  friends  who 
sympathized  with  his  unfortunate  temperament.  One 
of  them,  Edmond  Lepelletier,  a  brave  and  good  man, 
who  was  later  to  become  his  biographer,  has  done  much 
to  dispel  the  evil  report  that  had  its  rise  at  the  time  the 
poet  was  divorced  from  his  wife,  and  which  clung  to 
him  through  life. 

Writing  of  this  in  his  biography  of  the  poet,  Lepel- 
letier says:  "A  legend  grew  up  around  him;  all  the 
more  persistent  and  enduring  from  the  fact  that  Ver- 
laine  himself  was  largely  its  author,  and  dug  the  grave 
of  his  own  reputation.  His  disciples  widely  dissemi- 
nated the  gospel  of  depravity  it  amused  him  to  preach." 

Elsewhere  in  this  biography  is  found  this  passage: 
"What  decided  him  (to  leave  Rethel,  where  he  was 
professor)  was,  perhaps,  one  of  his  impulses — strange, 
powerful,  and  much  misunderstood — toward  friend- 
ship. I  have  already  alluded  to  the  strength  of  the 
attachment  he  conceived  for  various  comrades:  one  of 
his  Dujardin  cousins,  Lucien  Viotti  and  Arthur  Rim- 
baud .  .  .  Lucien  Letinois,  another  of  his  attachments, 
was  the  son  of  a  farmer,  born  at  Coulommes,  in  the 
Ardennes.  He  was  a  tall,  pale,  slim,  awkward  youth, 
with  a  melancholy  and  simple  air  .  .  .  the  shepherd  in 
a  comic  opera."  Upon  the  death  of  this  youth,  Ver- 
laine,  "not  being  able,"  as  writes  Lepelletier,  "like  the 
Emperor  Hadrian  to  erect  a  mausoleum  in  stone  to  this 


io  Paul  Verlaine 

Ardennoise  Antinous,  he  constructed  Amour,  a  lyrical 
monument  apparently  indestructible." 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  Mdlle.  Mathilde  Maute, 
Verlaine's  fiancee,  who  in  1870  could  prattle  to  her 
lover,  "J'ai  demande  hier  a  maman  comment  on  avait 
des  enfants  et  elle  m'a  repondu  que  c'etait  quand  on 
baisait  un  homme  sur  la  bouche"  would  in  a  few  short 
months  calmly  announce  to  the  world,  "que  les  senti- 
ments de  son  man  pour  ce  privilegie  (Rimbaud)  des 
Muses  se  muaient  en  une  affection  .  .  .  trop  vive!" 

Arthur  Rimbaud  was  a  powerful  factor  in  the  down- 
fall of  Verlaine.  A  rascal,  not  without  talent,  he  led 
the  weak-willed  poet  from  his  home  in  Paris  to  a  vaga- 
bond life  in  Belgium  and  England.  Then,  having  com- 
pleted his  ruin,  he  succeeded  in  landing  his  erstwhile 
friend  in  prison  and  disappeared  from  Europe,  later  to 
reappear  in  the  spectacular  role  of  slave  driver  and 
trader  in  Northern  Africa. 

Verlaine  never  ceased  to  regret  his  wife,  who  was 
divorced  from  him  in  1874.  In  his  volume  of  prose, 
entitled  Memoires  d'un  Veuf,  he  writes  of  her  as  fol- 
lows :  "She  was  petite — small,  with  a  fear  of  embon- 
point; her  toilet  was  almost  simple,  coquettish  in  a  way, 
but  very  slightly  so.  I  remember  her  always  as  dressed 
in  gray  or  green — a  tender  green  and  somber  gray, 
because  of  the  indecisive  color  of  her  hair — which  ap- 
peared to  be  of  a  luminous  chestnut  tint,  and  of  her 
eyes  of  which  one  could  hardly  decide  or  even  guess  the 
color.  She  was  good  hearted,  but  truly  vindictive  and 
given  to  irredeemable  hatreds.  Her  hands  were  little, 
and  her  forehead  rather  small,  upon  which  a  kiss  was 
only  to  be  lightly  pressed  to  pass  to  other  things.  The 
blue  flower  of  the  veins  about  her  temples  was  easily 
swollen  by  anger — not  hasty,  but  premeditated — but 
for  causes,  which,  after  all,  were  pardonable.  In  sum, 
she  was  a  wife  worthy  of  any  man,  and  although 
tempestuous  at  times,  like  the  sea,  like  it  she  could  be 
calm  and  gentle  and  altogether  lovable." 


The  Man  n 

Such  was  the  heroine  of  La  Bonne  Chanson,  a  work 
which  Lepelletier  calls  a  stanza  taken  from  the  eternal 
poem  of  youthful  love.  Some  years  after  her  divorce 
Madame  Verlaine  married  and  became  the  mother  of 
an  interesting  family.  According  to  Frank  Harris,  in 
his  Contemporary  Portraits,  she  was  alive  in  1915 
and  about  to  publish  her  Memoirs. 

Aside  from  the  period  of  his  infancy  Verlaine  was 
sober — for  a  time.  This  was  an  enforced  sobriety  of 
two  years  in  jail.  From  the  prison  at  Mons  also  dates 
what  he  was  pleased  to  call  his  religious  conversion. 
There  be  those  who  profess  to  find  in  the  volume  of 
Sagesse,  begun  about  this  period,  "the  most  truly  beau- 
tiful and  Christian  poems  of  all  time."  Granted,  they 
may  be  Christian,  but  from  another  point  of  view 
Sagesse  is  the  most  puerile  of  all  his  works.  Verlaine 
was  incapable,  mentally,  of  attaining,  even  approxi- 
mately, the  Christian  ideal.  Repentant  (being  sober 
and  in  prison)  no  doubt  he  was,  but  Christian,  never. 

Sagesse,  however,  serves  by  way  of  contrast  to  bring 
into  bolder  relief  the  strange,  erotic  work  Parallele- 
ment,  whose  verses  appear  to  have  been  written  alter- 
nately with  those  of  Sagesse. 

Apropos  to  this,  Donos  in  his  Verlaine  Intime  writes : 
"To  the  magic  lantern  of  the  Devil,  Verlaine  en  train  to 
compose  Sagesse  is  obsessed  with  the  lubrique  vision  of 
a  certain  chamber  in  Paris  where  his  affectionate  Rim- 
baud offered  him  one  night  a  singular  hospitality." 
And  the  poet  turns  from  "My  God  to  me  has  said," 
to  compose: 

"O  chambre,  as-tu  garde  les  spectres  ridicules, 
O  plein  de  jour  sale  et  de  bruits  d'araignees?" 

Neither  in  Sagesse  nor  Parallelement  is  Verlaine 
immortal. 

Paul  Verlaine  has  erroneously  been  likened  to  a  num- 
ber of  other  writers.  On  the  side  of  his  character  he 


12  Paul  Verlaine 

has  been  compared  with  Villon  and  Poe.  There  are 
points  of  resemblance  to  each.  But  as  a  writer  he  is 
unique,  and  comparison  fails.  Of  northern  French  an- 
cestry, he  had  a  penchant  for  the  North — for  Belgium 
and  England.  He  learned  English  and  read  Shake- 
speare. He  even  wrote  some  sober,  dignified  prose 
articles  for  certain  English  magazines,  his  style  con- 
forming with  the  solidity  and  gravity  of  these  reviews. 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life,  Verlaine  furnished 
much  good  natured  amusement  for  tout  Paris.  But 
these  were  years  of  misery  and  suffering  for  the  poet, 
reduced  to  pauperism  by  his  dissipated  habits  and  im- 
practical temperament.  In  proportion,  however,  as  his 
misery  and  illness  were  augmented,  his  fame  grew. 
"Verlaine  is  back  to  the  hospital,"  printed  as  a  news 
item  in  the  daily  press,  was  the  signal  for  a  fresh  batch 
of  anecdotes  concerning  his  strange  career. 

Edgar  Saltus  writing  of  the  poet  says:  "After  his 
discharge  from  prison,  I  had  the  signal  honor  of  meet- 
ing him,  and  I  can  see  him  now,  Socrates  and  Anapreon 
in  one,  hiccoughing  down  the  laurel  lanes,  paying  with 
enigmatic  songs  the  food  which  young  poets  provided, 
distilling  a  mysterious  music  from  the  absinthe  offered 
by  them,  and  presenting  at  last  a  spectacle  unique  in 
literature,  that  of  a  singer  applauded  in  a  charity  bed 
and  rising  from  it  to  become  one  of  the  glories  of 
France — though  not  of  the  French  Academy." 

It  was  George  Moore  who  first  brought  Verlaine  to 
the  notice  of  the  English  public.  Moore's  visit  to  the 
poet  and  related  in  his  book  Impressions  and  Opinions 
is  illuminating:  "In  a  dark  corner,  at  the  end  of  a 
narrow  passage  situated  at  the  top  of  the  last  flight  of 
stairs,  we  discovered  a  door.  We  knocked.  A  voice 
made  itself  heard.  We  entered  and  saw  Verlaine. 
The  terrible  forehead,  bald  and  prominent,  was  half 
covered  by  a  filthy  nightcap,  and  a  night  shirt  full  of 
the  grease  of  the  bed  covered  his  shoulders;  a  stained 


The  Man  13 

and  discolored  pair  of  trousers  was  hitched  up  somehow 
about  his  waist.  He  was  drinking  wine  at  sixteen  sous 
the  litre.  He  told  us  that  he  had  just  come  out  of  the 
hospital;  that  his  leg  was  better,  but  it  still  gave  him 
a  great  deal  of  pain.  He  pointed  to  it.  We  looked 
away." 

The  poet's  tempestuous  liaisons  with  various  women 
during  his  latter  days  serve  to  strengthen  the  conclu- 
sion of  Lombroso  that  genius  is  a  degenerative 
psychosis  of  the  epileptoid  order.  These  women  were 
beings  of  the  commonest  clay,  most  of  them  from  the 
underworld.  They  alternately  beat,  robbed  and  be- 
trayed him.  Yet  one  of  them  wiped  the  moisture  of 
death  from  his  forehead,  and  another  wept  at  his  tomb 
when  all  others  had  gone. 

The  poet's  will,  written  in  bitter  jest,  is  a  document 
to  muse  upon.  It  is  the  epitome  of  a  misspent  life : 

MY  WILL 

I  give  nothing  to  the  poor,  because  I  am  poor  myself. 
I  believe  in  God. 

Paul  Verlaine. 

Codicil. — As  regards  my  obsequies,  I  desire  to  be 
conducted  to  the  place  of  final  repose  in  a  Lesage  cart 
(dust  cart)  and  that  my  remains  be  deposited  in  the 
crypt  of  the  Odeon. 

As  my  fame  has  never  prevented  any  one  from  sleep- 
ing, the  choirs  can  sing,  during  the  sad  ceremony,  to  an 
air  of  Gossec's,  the  celebrated  ode  "La  France  a  perdus 
son  Morphee" 

Made  in  Paris,  June,  1885. 

Verlaine  never  learned  that  the  senses  can  only  be 
exhausted,  not  satisfied.  But  in  this  he  was  not  alone. 
It  is  thus  with  many  men  of  genius.  Their  moral  sight 
seems  blinded  by  the  rays  of  that  superintelligence  with 


14  Paul  Ferlaine 

which  the  god  of  Chance  has  endowed  them,  and  they 
fall  to  chasing  the  butterflies  of  passion,  rather  than 
giving  heed  to  the  more  responsible  duties  of  life.  Like 
meteors  out  of  the  night  of  Time  do  such  personalities 
appear  to  our  astonished  vision,  and  long  after  their 
astral  bodies  have  flashed  below  the  horizon  do  their 
lights  persist. 

And  it  is  to  them  we  owe  so  much — the  perfect 
statue,  the  matchless  painting,  and  the  deathless  song. 


II 

His  LIFE 

Paul  Marie  Verlaine  was  born  at  Metz,  Lorraine, 
France,  March  30,  1844.  His  father,  Nicolas  Auguste 
Verlaine,  was  born  in  Belgium  and  was  forty-six  years 
old  at  the  poet's  birth. 

The  poet's  mother  was  born  in  Fampoux,  (Pas  De 
Calais)  France.  Her  maiden  name  was  Josephe 
Stephanie  Dehee.  She  was  thirty-two  years  old  when 
her  son  was  born.  Verlaine's  father  was  Captain  Adju- 
tant-Major, Second  Regiment  of  Engineers,  in  the 
French  Army.  He  was  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  d'Hon- 
neur  and  of  the  order  of  Saint  Ferdinand  d'Espagne. 

In  1851  the  Verlaines  moved  to  Paris  and  bought 
property  in  the  suburb,  Les  Batignolles,  on  the  old  rue 
Saint  Louis. 

In  religion  Mme.  Verlaine  was  a  devout  Catholic, 
but  her  husband  was  indifferent  to  such  matters.  Paul 
was  an  only  child  and  at  an  early  age  was  sent  to 
private  school,  rue  Helene,  and  later  to  the  Institute 
Landry,  boarding  school  on  the  rue  Chaptal,  where  he 
remained  several  years.  At  this  Institute  pupils  were 
prepared  by  classes  at  the  Lycee  Bonaparte.  In  a  class 
of  fifty  pupils,  the  future  poet  ranked  neither  first  nor 
last.  He  was  especially  deficient  in  mathematics  but 
notably  good  in  rhetoric,  literature,  Latin  and  Greek. 
He  took  his  Bachelor  of  Letters  degree,  and  in  an  appli- 
cation for  government  position  was  highly  recom- 
mended by  his  teacher. 


1 6  Paul  Verlaine 

Verlaine's  parents  intended  him  for  the  law,  and 
after  his  school  days  he  began  the  study  of  this  pro- 
fession, at  the  same  time  endeavoring  to  secure  a  posi- 
tion with  the  Government.  Finding  law  distasteful, 
the  future  poet  took  (after  some  months  training  in  a 
business  college)  a  subordinate  position  in  an  insurance 
office.  Through  influence  of  His  father's  friends,  he 
was  appointed,  some  months  later,  as  clerk  in  the 
municipal  offices  of  the  ninth  arrondissement,  and  later 
was  promoted  to  a  clerkship  in  the  Bureau  of  Budgets 
and  Accounts.  This  was  in  1864,  and  the  poet  was 
then  twenty  years  old. 

At  this  age  he  was  already  dissipated.  In  fact,  his 
irregular  habits  dated  almost  from  his  entrance  into  the 
Lycee  Bonaparte.  He  describes  with  singular  sang- 
froid, in  his  Confessions,  how,  at  the  age  when  most 
children  are  still  in  knickerbockers,  he  lost  his  innocence 
in  a  vile  bagnio  on  a  side  street  in  Paris. 

Verlaine  as  a  clerk  in  the  Hotel-de-Ville  was  indolent, 
spending  most  of  his  time  in  a  neighboring  cafe  in  com- 
pany with  other  municipal  employes,  a  number  of  whom 
had  literary  aspirations.  According  to  Lepelletier,  few 
of  these  municipal  clerks  bothered  their  heads  about 
work.  Verlaine  had  written  verses  from  his  early 
school  days,  and  profiting  by  the  light  duties  of  clerk- 
ship, he  brought  out  at  this  time  his  first  book,  Poemes 
Saturniens.  This  work,  a  thin  volume  of  163  pages, 
bore  the  imprint  "Alphonse  Lemerre,  publisher,  Paris; 
47  Passage  Choiseul,  1866." 

Captain  Verlaine  having  died  in  December,  1865,  his 
widow  continued  to  live  at  Les  Batignolles  with  her 
son,  upon  whom  she  lavished  every  tenderness.  Indeed, 
she  spoiled  him  shamefully,  indulged  him  in  everything, 
and  forgave  all  his  youthful  follies.  The  young  clerk 
sowed  a  tremendous  crop  of  wild  oats — coming  home 
drunk  at  all  hours  of  the  night.  This  lack  of  restraint 


His  Life  17 

in  his  youth,  coupled  with  a  weak  will  and  neurotic 
temperament,  was  the  cause  of  his  downfall. 

In  1869,  Verlaine,  still  at  the  Hotel-de-Ville,  brought 
out,  through  the  publisher  Lemerre,  a  second  volume 
of  poems,  the  Fetes  Galantes. 

These  were  the  happiest  days  of  the  unfortunate 
man's  life.  He  was  twenty-live.  The  author  of  two 
volumes  of  poems  which  gave  brilliant  promise,  secure 
and  light  employment,  promising  better  things,  he  was 
one  of  a  group  of  young  writers  who  had  already  made 
a  noise  in  the  world  of  letters  and  who,  under  the  name 
of  Parnassiens,  have  left  an  indelible  impression  upon 
French  literature. 

He  appears  to  have  been  popular  with  his  friends. 
In  fact,  through  his  entire  life  he  seems  to  have  had  the 
gift  of  friendship,  and  this,  despite  his  eccentricities. 
His  was  a  sort  of  saturnine  gaiety — repulsive  and  pleas- 
ing by  turns. 

When  Captain  Verlaine  died,  he  left  his  widow  in 
modest  but  comfortable  circumstances,  and  while  the 
poet's  salary  as  a  clerk  was  small,  he  spent  it  entirely 
upon  himself,  and  a  little  money  in  1869,  in  Paris,  went 
far,  if  one  had  Bohemian  tastes. 

The  poet  had  already  met  Victor  Hugo,  and  Sainte- 
Beuve  had  earnestly  and  conscientiously  praised  his 
Poemes  Saturniens.  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  had  also  given 
him  a  slight  stab  of  criticism.  He  knew  intimately  most 
of  the  literary  people  of  Paris  worth  knowing.  He  was 
a  welcomed  guest  at  the  homes  of  influential  and  worthy 
people.  Although  exceedingly  ugly  of  face,  he  rather 
fascinated  and  stamped  his  individuality  upon  those 
who  saw  him  for  the  first  time.  Usually  careless  in 
his  costume,  he  now  dressed  better,  and  he  was  in  love  I 

Life  at  times  is  very  much  like  those  fine  old  Swiss 
clocks  that  play  a  merry  little  tune  and  then  strike  the 
hour — solemnly. 


1 8  Paul  Verlaine 

The  object  of  the  poet's  affection  was  Mdlle. 
Mathilde  Maute,  half-sister  to  one  of  his  friends, 
Charles  de  Sivry,  and  it  was  at  the  latter's  home  that 
he  first  met  her  in  the  spring  of  1 869.  It  seems  to  have 
been  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight  upon  the  part  of  both. 
Mdlle.  Maute  was  very  young,  almost  a  child,  and  she 
seems  to  have  been  singularly  attractive,  judging  from 
what  has  been  written  about  her.  That  she  inspired 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  poet's  works,  La  Bonne 
Chanson  (The  Good  Song),  must  ever  resound  to  her 
credit.  Unfortunate  for  her  that  her  path  should  have 
crossed  that  of  the  unhappy  man  whom  she  was  later 
to  wed.  Posterity  will  forgive  her  any  faults  com- 
mitted in  hours  of  sorrow.  Verlaine  as  a  husband  was 
impossible. 

Youth  and  love!  The  divine  alchemy  that  trans- 
mutes the  base  metals  of  daily  life  into  the  pure  gold 
of  sentiment!  The  poet  sang: 

"Before  thou  takest  flight 
Pale  star  of  dawn  sublime, 

— A  thousand  quail 
Singing,  singing  in  the  thyme, — 

Turn  toward  the  poet, 

Mark  his  eyes  how  full  of  love, 

— The  lark 
Mounts  to  the  sky  above." 

The  courtship  of  the  young  couple  was  filled,  alter- 
nately, with  ecstasy  and  disappointment,  and  the  date 
of  the  wedding  was  postponed  twice.  Verlaine  gave 
up  for  the  time  his  dissipated  habits  and  became  a  duti- 
ful son,  if  not  an  ideal  lover.  He  continued  to  unburden 
his  heart  with  the  good  song,  and  the  spring  of  1870 
saw  his  hopes  about  to  be  realized.  He  raised  his  voice 
in  that  matchless  lay  of  triumphant  joy: 


His  Life  19 

"Winter  has  gone :  the  balmy  light  indeed 
Dances,  from  earth  unto  the  heavens  clear. 
O,  well  may  the  heart  the  most  sad  accede 
To  the  immense  joy  scattered  in  the  air !" 

The  year  1870  was  the  Terrible  Year  for  France. 
The  country  was  filled  with  rumors  of  war.  The  date 
of  the  wedding  had  been  set  for  the  month  of  August, 
but  before  it  took  place  hostilities  had  already  begun. 
With  what  disaster  and  defeat!  With  MacMahon  in 
full  flight  and  the  Prussians  advancing  on  Paris,  amid 
the  noise  of  regiments  defiling  along  the  boulevards, 
the  nuptials  were  celebrated  at  the  church  of  Notre 
Dame  de  Cligmancourt.  Among  those  present  was 
Louise  Michel,  then  a  schoolmistress  at  Montmartre. 

Of  the  poet  at  this  time  Lepelletier  says :  "He  had 
hope  and  faith;  marriage  for  him  was  a  true  sacrament, 
an  initiation  of  the  soul.  He  had  never  loved,  never 
been  loved  before.  It  was  the  most  wonderful  moment 
in  his  life." 

It  was  during  the  first  year  of  his  marriage  that  Ver- 
laine  published,  through  Lemerre,  his  third  book  of 
poems,  La  Bonne  Chanson.  "A  flower  in  a  bombshell," 
Victor  Hugo  called  it. 

While  the  Verlaines  celebrated  their  honeymoon  at 
No.  2  Rue  du  Cardinal-Lemoine,  where  they  had 
begun  housekeeping,  Paris  was  invested  and  the  Com- 
mune raged.  Things  were  topsyturvy  at  the  Hotel-de- 
Ville,  and  a  cloud  "bigger  than  a  man's  hand"  had 
darkened  their  foyer — conjugal  incompatibility!  The 
poet  deserted  his  clerical  post  (or  rather  failed  to 
follow  M.  Thiers  to  Versailles)  and  shouldering  a  car- 
bine mounted  guard  in  defense  of  the  city,  in  the  i6oth 
battalion  of  the  Rapee-Bercy.  This  was  during  the 
winter,  1870-71. 

The  weather  was  desperately  cold,  and  the  citizen 
soldier,  in  consequence,  developed  a  desperate  thirst. 


2O  Paul  Verlaine 

Before  long,  he  began  to  go  home  drunk,  some  say  to 
beat  his  wife.  Howbeit,  the  roses  of  August  had  shed 
their  petals,  and  the  Prussian  guns  had  driven  the  blue- 
bird far  away.  The  young  wife  fled  also,  going  to  the 
home  of  her  parents.  Thither  the  poet  followed,  and 
a  temporary  reconciliation  took  place.  The  poet  went 
back  to  the  Hotel-de-Ville  in  the  spring,  but  during  the 
summer  took  his  wife  to  the  country,  returning  in  Sep- 
tember. Through  his  neglect,  notwithstanding  that 
order  had  been  restored  in  Paris,  he  lost  his  clerkship. 
For  a  time  the  couple  lived  with  the  wife's  parents, 
where  their  son,  Georges,  was  born,  and  where,  one 
fatal  day,  the  devil  entered  in  the  form  of  Arthur 
Rimbaud. 

This  singular  genius  was  born  at  Charleville, 
France,  in  1854,  and  at  the  time  of  his  meeting  with 
Verlaine  was  a  lad  of  seventeen.  He  was  precocious, 
and  as  a  schoolboy  had  composed  a  number  of  bizarre 
poems.  The  Poemes  Saturniens  having  come  to  his 
notice,  he  wrote  the  author  a  flattering  letter,  and  the 
impressionable  Verlaine  invited  him  to  visit  Paris. 
Paul  and  his  wife  were  still  living  with  the  latter's 
parents,  and  the  introduction  of  Rimbaud  into  their 
home  was  a  fresh  cause  of  discord. 

Rimbaud  proved  himself  a  drunken  visionary  and 
scoundrel,  and  in  July,  1872,  the  two  friends  decamped 
from  Paris,  going  to  Belgium  where  they  led  a  vaga- 
bond existence.  They  also  visited  England,  living  in 
London  for  several  months  upon  funds  supplied  by 
Verlaine's  mother,  eked  out  by  a  pittance  earned  from 
giving  French  lessons. 

In  June,  1873,  Verlaine  and  Rimbaud  were  back  in 
Belgium,  where  Paul's  mother  awaited  him  in  Brussels. 
Lepelletier  writes:  "Verlaine's  psychological  state  at 
this  period  was  distressing,  almost  morbid.  I  have 
already  said  that  he  detested  and  adored  his  wife. 
Alternately  he  cried  for  her,  longed  for  her,  cursed  and 


His  Life  21 

overwhelmed  her  with  reproaches   and  insults   from 
afar." 

Association  with  Rimbaud  had  ruined  him  morally 
and  physically.  A  hopeless  dipsomaniac,  he  was  on 
the  verge  of  delirium  tremens.  The  two  men  quarreled 
in  a  room  at  the  hotel  de  Courtrai,  Brussels,  in  the 
presence  of  Verlaine's  mother.  The  poet,  forthwith, 
drew  a  pistol  and  fired  two  shots  at  Rimbaud,  intent  on 
killing  the  man  whose  baneful  influence  had  aided  so 
much  in  completing  his  downfall.  Save  a  slight  wound 
in  the  wrist,  Rimbaud  was  unhurt.  A  few  hours  later, 
as  Rimbaud  was  being  accompanied  to  the  train  for 
Charleville  by  Verlaine  and  his  mother,  a  reconcilia- 
tion having  taken  place  between  the  two  men,  the  poet 
made  another  ineffectual  attempt  upon  the  life  of 
Rimbaud. 

I      Arrested  as  an  assassin,  he  was  lodged  in  a  local 
/  prison,  1'Amigo,  and  later  sentenced  to  two  years  im- 
prisonment at  Mons.     During  his  incarceration,  Ver- 
laine's wife  obtained  a  divorce. 

During  his  enforced  sojourn  at  Mons  the  poet's 
fourth  volume,  the  Romances  Sans  Paroles  (Romances 
Without  Words)  was  printed  by  his  friend  Lepelletier. 
This  exquisite  collection  of  poems  was  unnoticed  by  the 
press.  Verlaine  was  tabooed  in  Paris.  His  name  was 
synonymous  with  shame. 

For  five  years  after  his  release  from  prison  in  1875, 
the  poet  led  a  wandering  existence.  He  was  by  turns 
country  school  teacher  in  England,  professor  in  an 
ecclesiastical  college  in  France,  and  farmer  at  Coulom- 
mes,  with  Lucien  Letinios.  He  drank,  squandered  his 
mother's  small  fortune,  and  failed  in  everything.  Paris 
had  long  since  forgotten  him.  His  faithful  mother 
was  his  only  friend.  As  one  writer  says,  Verlaine  was 
"irregular  in  everything  and  a  vagrant  even  in  in- 
tellect." 

The  poet  was  back  in  Paris  in  1881,  where  Victor 


22  Paul  Verlaine 

Palme,  a  Catholic  publisher,  brought  out  his  Sagesse. 
The  work  attracted  little  notice,  and  the  publisher,  hav- 
ing in  the  meantime  learned  something  of  the  author's 
life,  destroyed  the  entire  edition.  Verlaine,  endeavor- 
ing to  support  himself  and  mother  by  literary  work, 
was  aided  greatly  by  his  friend,  Lepelletier,  then  editor 
of  the  Reveil.  The  poet  was  for  a  period  on  the 
regular  staff  of  this  paper,  his  work  consisting  mainly 
of  short  sketches  which  were  collected  in  a  prose  volume 
entitled,  Les  Memoir es  d'un  Feuf  (The  Memories  of 
a  Widower). 

Upon  his  return  to  Paris,  the  poet  had  found  new 
faces  and  new  writers.  His  boyhood  friends  had  dis- 
appeared, or,  becoming  famous,  had  left  their  Bo- 
hemian days  behind.  Younger  writers  were  forming 
the  symbolic  school,  later  to  group  themselves  under  the 
black  flag  of  the  Decadents.  The  Parnassiens  of  '68 
had  been  hooted  off  the  stage,  and  Verlaine,  later  to 
become  chief  bonze  of  this  new  school,  was  then  almost 
unknown. 

He  began  to  be  seen  at  the  Brasserie  Bergere  and  in 
the  cafes  of  the  Quartier  Latin,  where  he  was  usually 
accompanied  by  Germain  Noveau,  and  where  he  met 
many  new  faces.  His  singular  appearance  and  capacity 
for  drink  doubtless  inspired  more  attention  than  his 
genius  as  a  poet.  Suddenly  leaving  the  city  with  his 
mother,  the  poet  again  took  up  farming  near  the  scene 
of  his  former  failure,  and  it  was  during  this  period 
( 1 883-84)  that  he  was  sentenced  to  a  month's  imprison- 
ment for  threatening,  during  a  fit  of  drunkenness,  the 
life  of  this  devoted  parent. 

We  find  him  back  in  Paris  the  following  year,  in  com- 
pany with  his  mother,  who  forgave  him  everything, 
but  the  poor  woman,  worn  with  sorrow,  did  not  long 
survive,  dying  in  January,  1886.  The  poet  was  now 
alone.  He  was  ruined  in  finances,  and  his  health  was 
rapidly  failing.  Attacked  with  gout,  his  muscles  atro- 


His  Life  23 

phied,  and  his  joints  grew  stiff.  He  could  hardly  walk. 
His  last  cent  spent,  he  became  an  object  of  charity. 
With  each  recurring  attack  of  rheumatism,  the  Munici- 
pality sent  him  to  some  hospital,  so  that  practically  the 
last  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  the  charity  wards  of 
these  institutions.  He  had  become  famous,  and  as 
"Poor  Lelain"  filled  much  space  in  the  papers.  During 
one  of  his  periods  of  convalescence  he  made  a  lecturing 
tour  through  Belgium,  where  he  was  everywhere  re- 
ceived with  becoming  deference. 

Besides  various  fragments  in  prose,  biographies, 
travel  notes  and  fantasies,  his  publisher,  Vanier, 
brought  out  successively,  in  Verlaine's  last  years,  sev- 
eral thin  volumes  of  poems,  none  of  which,  however, 
equaled  in  literary  value  his  earlier  work. 

"All  things  come  to  him  who  asks  for  nothing" — 
even  death.  The  Green  Fairy  that  had  so  long  pre- 
sided at  his  hours  flew  off  one  day.  It  was  another 
Shape — something  dark,  something  foreboding,  that 
frightened  it  Verlaine  was  again  sober,  but  ill.  The 
doctor  came,  looked  into  his  face — that  face  "devoured 
by  dreams,  feverish  and  somnolent"  and  went  away, 
snaking  his  head.  The  next  day,  JajSH^DL^'  I^96,  the 
poet  died. 

Friends  began  to  appear  at  the  little  furnished  apart- 
ment on  the  rue  Descartes,  presided  over  by  Eugenie 
Krantz,  known  sometimes  as  Nini-Mouton.  This  was 
the  poet's  last  earthly  asylum.  Thanks  to  his  mistress, 
he  did  not  die  in  the  hospital. 

When  all  was  over,  a  doctor  who  examined  the  body 
said,  "the  deceased  had  at  least  ten  mortal  maladies — 
he  was  worn  out — the  mere  husk  of  a  human  being!" 

A  death  mask  was  taken  by  the  mouleur  Meoni,  and 
the  expense  of  the  funeral,  which  took  place  at  the 
church,  Saint-Etienne-du-Mont,  was  borne  by  friends, 
assisted  by  the  State. 

The  poet  was  fifty-two  years  old  when  he  died. 


Ill 

THE  WORK 

"Paul  Verlaine  is  a  juggler  by  the  grace  of  God." — 
Aline  Gorren. 

Time  is  the  great  purifier.  It  is  now  (1916)  twenty 
years  since  the  subject  of  this  study  was  laid  in  the 
grave.  Human  charity  has  mantled  with  kindly  forget- 
fulness  the  faults  inherent  in  his  clay.  In  accord  with 
that  process  of  nature  which  wills  that  a  thing  of  beauty 
shall  never  die,  his  poems  have  taken  their  deserving 
place  in  the  world's  literature. 

"By  the  grace  of  God  Paul  Verlaine  was  a  juggler," 
and  something  more !  To  the  critic  of  his  day  the  tour 
de  force  of  this  literary  necromancer  was  that  of  string- 
ing a  number  of  brightly  colored  words  on  a  gossamer 
thread  of  thought  and  calling  the  display  a  poem.  The 
trick  was  easy.  It  required  neither  skill  nor  talent.  A 
slight  rearrangement  of  words,  and  presto  !  a  symbolist. 
A  dash  of  diablerie  and  we  have — a  decadent.  There 
is  really  nothing  new — but  genius.  Schools  of  poetry 
come  and  go.  Yesterday  it  was  a  Futurist — today  it  is 
the  Imagist.  The  cult  is  forgotten — the  Poet  alone 
lives. 

The  poems  of  Paul  Verlaine  fill  three  stout  volumes. 
Owing  to  their  subjective  treatment  and  autobiograph- 
ical character,  they  form  a  bewildering  and  contradic- 
tory index  to  his  character.  Save  in  his  early  verse, 
Verlaine  was  personal,  first,  last,  and  wholly. 

Remy  De  Gourmont  said  the  poet's  first  master  was 
Banville;  the  second,  Baudelaire,  and  the  third  him- 

[25] 


26  Paul  Verlaine 

self.  This  characterization  is  probably  the  most  ac- 
curate, briefly  stated.  However,  the  influence  of 
Banville  was  not  so  pronounced  as  that  of  Baudelaire. 
The  poet  says  in  his  Confessions  that  Les  Fleurs  du 
Mai  was  one  of  his  earliest  books,  but  that  he  pored 
over  it  without  much  comprehension. 

Verlaine's  literary  activity  extended  through  three 
distinct  periods  of  French  poetry — those  of  the  Par- 
nassiens,  Symbolists,  and  Decadents.  In  common  with 
all  the  Parnassiens,  in  his  first  literary  expression,  he 
was  largely  influenced  not  only  by  Baudelaire  and  Ban- 
ville, but  by  Gautier  and  Leconte  de  Lisle.  "The  poets 
of  this  group  sacrificed  everything  to  form,  seeking  a 
sort  of  plastic  beauty,  replete  with  pictorial  effect  that 
charmed  the  ear  although  lacking  in  passion  and  ideas, 
and  unable  to  reach  the  heart."  Emaux  et  Camees 
and  Poemes  Saturniens  might  be  taken  as  the  work  of  a 
single  writer. 

However,  Paul  Verlaine  is  not,  on  the  whole,  to  be 
classed  with  any  school  of  French  poetry,  even  that  of 
the  Decadents.  He  very  early  dropped  the  formal, 
objective  style  of  verse — the  Symbolist  movement 
affected  him  only  slightly — and  it  was  not  until  nearly 
the  end  of  his  troubled  life  that  the  so-called  Decadents 
took  him  up  and  declared  him  their  master. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  his  most 
original  (though  not  most  pleasing)  literary  expression. 
The  name  Decadents,  given  to  a  group  of  young 
writers,  who,  in  1864-5,  used  to  frequent  the  cafes  in 
the  Quartier  Latin,  was  originally  meant  as  an  insulting 
appellation.  However,  they  immediately  seized  upon  it 
as  a  slogan.  Applied  to  literature,  the  word  has  little 
significance.  The  writers  to  whom  it  was  directed  were, 
many  of  them,  producing  beautiful  work  and  creating 
something  worthy  of  preservation.  The  word  was  used 
as  a  sort  of  generic  term  to  describe  all  those  writers 
of  Fin  de  Siecle  literature  whose  work  seemed  displeas- 


The  Work  27 

ing  to  bourgeois  ptiritanisme.  The  Parnassiens  and 
Symbolists  readily  came  under  this  characterization. 
The  name  persists. 

Paul  Verlaine  transcends   all  schools.     He  might 
almost  be  called  the  first  lyric  voice  in  France.     The 
French  language,  which  lends  itself  to  such  surprising 
and  charming  prose,  appears  too  formal  and  architec- 
tural for  purely  emotional  poetry.     However,  at  the 
hands  of  Verlaine  the  most  beautiful  results  are  ob- 
1  tained.      "There   are   poems,"    says   Arthur   Symons, 
1  "which  go  as  far  as  verse  can  go  to  become  pure  music, 
I  the  voice  of  a  bird  with  a  human  soul.   .   .     With  Ver- 
laine, the  sense  of  hearing  and  the  sense  of  sight  are 
almost  interchangeable :  he  paints  with  sound  and  his 
line  and  atmosphere  become  music.   .   .  His  landscape 
painting  is  always  an  evocation,  in  which  outline  is  lost 
in  atmosphere." 

Verlaine  is  entirely  untrammeled  by  any  conventional 
theories  of  composition.  He  moulds  the  language  at 
his  will.  "Always  the  poet  of  instinct  or  impulse,  verse 
to  him  is  a  spontaneous  expression  of  feeling,  conscious 
of  no  literary  tradition  and  developing  no  consecutive 
thought,"  to  quote  Prof.  Wells. 

Lemaitre,  who,  next  to  Prof.  Rene  Doumic,  is  the 
poet's  severist  critic,  says  that  he  uses  the  language  "not 
like  a  great  writer  because  he  knows  it,  but  like  a  child 
because  he  is  ignorant  of  it.  He  gives  wrong  senses  to 
words  in  his  simplicity.  .  .  He  scarcely  ever  expresses 
movements  of  full  consciousness  or  entire  sanity.  It  is 
on  this  account,  very  often,  that  the  meaning  of  his 
song  is  clear — if  it  is  so  at  all — to  himself  alone.  In 
the  same  way,  his  rhythms  are  sometimes  perceptible  by 
no  one  but  himself." 

For  those  who  read  them  in  the  original  language, 
those  poems  commonly  most  enjoyed  are  found  in 
Poemes  Saturniens,  Fetes  Galantes,  La  Bonne  Chanson, 


28  Paul  Ferlaine 

Romances  Sans  Paroles,  and  some  of  the  poems  in 
Sag ess e  and  Jadis  et  Naguere. 

From  whence  came  the  inspiration  of  the  charming 
Fetes  Galantes,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  Some 
writers  profess  that  this,  the  chef  d'  ceume  of  the  school 
of  the  Parnassiens,  was  inspired  by  Victor  Hugo's  La 
Fete  Chez  Therese;  others  that  Shakespeare's  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream  is  the  source.  Lepelletier 
hazarding  a  guess,  sums  up  his  conclusions  as  follows : 
"No  borrowed  inspiration  is  to  be  found  here;  it  is 
a  synthesis  of  the  art  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  pres- 
entation of  the  manners,  conversations  and  diversions 
of  that  dainty  and  superficial  period." 

Prof.  Wells  (Sewanee  Review,  1895)  writes:  "To 
catch  the  grace  of  L'Allee  or  of  Columbine,  one  must 
know  a  little  of  Parny  and  much  of  Watteau,  for  the 
former  poem  is  a  Dresden  shepherdess  in  Fin  de  Siecle 
Alexandrines  and  the  latter  is  her  joyous  companion  in 
a  song  measure  that  might  have  charmed  Banville  him- 
self." 

This  is  what  George  Moore  says  of  the  poet: 
"Never  shall  I  forget  the  first  enchantment  of  Les 
Fetes  Galantes.  Here  all  is  twilight.  The  royal  mag- 
nificences of  the  sunset  have  passed;  the  solemn  beati- 
tude of  the  night  is  at  hand,  but  not  yet  here;  the  ways 
are  veiled  with  shadow  and  lit  with  dresses,  white,  that 
the  hour  has  touched  with  blue,  yellow,  green,  mauve, 
and  undecided  purple;  the  voices?  strange  contraltos; 
the  forms?  not  those  of  men  or  women,  but  mystic, 
hybrid  creatures,  with  hands  nervous  and  pale,  and  eyes 
charged  with  eager  and  fitful  light  .  .  .  'tin  soir 
equivoque  d'automne'  .  .  .  'les  belles  pendent  re- 
reuses  a  nos  bras'  .  .  .  and  they  whisper  'les  mots 
specieux  et  tout  bas'." 

"Gautier  sang  to  his  antique  lyre  praise  of  the  flesh 
and  contempt  of  the  soul;  Baudelaire  on  a  medieval 
organ  chanted  his  unbelief  in  goodness  and  truth  and 


The  Work  29 

his  hatred  of  life.  But  Verlaine  advances  a  step 
further :  hate  is  to  him  as  commonplace  as  love,  unf aith 
as  vulgar  as  faith.  The  world  is  merely  a  doll  to  be 
attired  today  in  a  modern  ball  dress,  tomorrow  in 
aureoles  and  stars.  The  Virgin  is  a  pretty  thing,  worth 
a  poem,  but  it  would  be  quite  too  silly  to  talk  about 
belief  or  unbelief;  Christ  in  wood  or  plaster  we  have 
heard  too  much  of,  but  Christ  in  painted  glass  amid 
crosiers  and  Latin  terminations,  is  an  amusing  subject 
for  poetry.  And  strangely  enough,  a  withdrawal  from 
all  commerce  with  virtue  and  vice  is,  it  would  seem,  a 
licentiousness  more  curiously  subtle  and  penetrating 
than  any  other;  and  the  licentiousness  of  the  verse  is 
equal  to  that  of  the  emotion;  every  natural  instinct  of 
the  language  is  violated,  and  the  simple  music  native  in 
French  metre  is  replaced  by  falsetto  notes  sharp  and 
intense.  The  charm  is  that  of  an  odor  of  iris  exhaled 
by  some  ideal  tissues,  or  of  a  missal  in  a  gold  case,  a 
precious  relic  of  the  pomp  and  ritual  of  an  archbishop 
of  Persepolis." 

From  these  "little  biscuit"  figures  that  might  well  be 
entitled  Water  Colors  for  a  Fan — from  these  "twenty 
little  pieces  of  verse,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  the  French 
dixhuitieme  siecles  perfumed  and  gilded  atmosphere," 
La  Bonne  Chanson,  which  follows,  is  like  a  nuptial 
chime,  which  in  truth  it  is. 

These  poems  reflect  all  that  was  best  and  most  whole- 
some in  the  poet's  life.  By  no  means  the  greatest  of  his 
work,  they  are,  however,  the  most  spontaneous.  The 
language  of  love  is  so  universal  and  so  well  understood, 
that  those  who  find  Verlaine  obscure  in  his  other  work 
can  have  no  cause  for  complaint  in  reading: 

"All  grace  and  all  light 
In  the  flush  of  her  sixteen  years." 

Of  La  Bonne  Chanson  the  poet  once  said,  "I  have 
always  had  a  predilection  for  this  poor  little  volume, 
into  which  the  whole  of  a  purified  heart  was  put." 


30  Paul  Verlaine 

It  was  in  Romances  Sans  Paroles  that  Verlaine  found 
himself.  A  strange  book,  indeed,  born  of  a  troubled 
period  of  his  early  life.  Here  begins  that  litany  which, 
while  life  lasted,  he  never  ceased  to  chant — lament  for 
the  wife  who,  through  his  own  fault,  he  had  irrevo- 
cably lost.  How  thoroughly  had  he  learned  that  "Le 
passe  n'est  jamais  une  chose  morte." 

Here,  also,  are  emphasized  those  melancholy  lan- 
guors and  peculiar  thrills  of  grief  which  permeate  so 
much  of  his  verse.  "Where  Baudelaire  is  bitter,  Ver- 
laine is  only  sad,"  says  Turquet-Milnes.  And  here, 
also,  he  seems  "first  to  recognize  the  whole  charm  of 
the  word  half  spoken  .  .  .  and  of  faltering  with  grace" 
in  a  manner  which  caused  him  to  appear  "less  intellec- 
tually clear  than  emotionally  simple."  Ah,  the  hope- 
lessness of  love !  "the  vague  sentiment  that  he  listened 
to  in  his  own  mind,  as  to  a  far  distant  melancholy 
song:" 

"O  triste,  triste  etait  mon  ante 
A  cause,  a  cause  a" une  femme!" 

Writing  of  himself  in  Memoir es  d'un  Veui  (doubt- 
less in  a  mood  of  intense  ennui  and  forgetful  of  the 
full-blooded  creatures  of  Parallelement,  of  Casta  Piana 
and  other  glorified  courtesans)  the  poet  says: 

"Are  you  like  myself?  I  hate  people  full  of  blood. 
I  despise  the  whole  rank  of  famous  painters  and  sculp- 
tors, notwithstanding  my  admiration  for  their  works. 
Noisy  voices,  rude  laughter,  shock  me  beyond  expres- 
sion,— in  a  word,  I  dislike  health.  By  health  I  do  not 
mean  that  marvelous  harmony  of  soul  and  body  which 
the  heroes  of  Sophocles  possessed,  and  the  antique 
statues  of  pagan  philosophers,  but  this  dreadful,  red 
face,  noisy  joy,  burned,  perspiring  skin,  plump  hands, 
thick  feet — the  whole  mass  of  body  and  colors,  a  super- 
abundance of  which  our  epoch  seems  to  enjoy. 


The  Work  31 

"From  the  same  motives,  I  hate  the  so-called  healthy 
poetry.  Imagine  only  this:  Beautiful  girls,  beautiful 
boys,  beautiful  souls, — 'mens  sana'  etc., — everything 
beautiful  beyond  words.  As  for  the  background: 
Green  woods,  green  fields,  blue  of  the  sky,  golden  sun, 
weaving  white, — I  turn  away  in  disgust. 

"Are  you  like  myself?  If  not,  leave  me  alone.  But 
if  so,  stay  and  tell  me  about  a  September  afternoon, 
about  a  burning,  sad  afternoon,  when  the  golden  ray 
of  melancholy  falls  upon  the  dying  and  over-ripe  land- 
scape. In  such  a  frame,  show  me  a  quiet,  queenlike 
figure  of  a  woman,  weary  of  suffering,  whose  youth  is 
past  but  a  few  years.  Her  strength  is  not  great;  still, 
she  can  walk  in  the  park.  Clad  in  a  white  dress,  she 
has  large,  gray  eyes,  like  the  sky,  unchanging  like  the 
horizon.  Truth  is  written  in  those  eyes :  a  profound, 
warm  passion  is  hidden  in  them. 

"My  heart  and  my  thoughts  accompany  this  pale 
enchantress,  while,  in  her  flowing  dress,  she  walks  over 
the  faded  flowers,  among  the  over-ripe  fruits,  sur- 
rounded by  the  scent  of  autumn." 

Of  Sagesse,  written  in  prison  at  Mons,  an  over- 
powering sense  of  shame  and  misery  quite  overbalanced 
his  mind,  already  weakened  by  excessive  use  of  stimu- 
lants. Enforced  continence,  also,  contributed  toward 
violent  mental  disturbances,  so  that  he  soon  found  him- 
self in  the  frame  of  mind  of  some  medieval,  ecstatic 
monk  and  began  pouring  forth  a  series  of  verses  as 
mystical  and  unintelligible  as  any  in  the  Apocalypse. 
Quite  in  keeping  with  this  mental  attitude  are  the  poems 
of  Parallelement,  most  of  which  were  written  at  the 
same  time.  Ch.  Donos,  writing  of  this  book,  says: 
"The  reading  of  Parallelement  is  equivalent  to  taking 
an  aphrodisiac  of  exquisite  flavor.  It  evokes  the  vision 
of  a  horde  of  unbridled  luxuries,  hennying  like  a  band 
of  wild  stallions  turned  loose  among  mares  on  an  open 
prairie  of  the  Far  West.  Les  passions  les  plus  perverse, 


32  Paul  Verla'me 

les  'vices  anormaux,  hors-nature,  sont  celebres,  mag- 
nifies dans  ce  livre.  Mais  en  des  vers  si  merveilleux  de 
facture,  avec  de  telles  subtilites  d'expression,  d'un 
rythme  tour  a  tour  berceur  comme  de  lents  baisers,  ou 
ravi  dans  I' elan  des  brutales  etrientes  qu'il  en  garde  le 
caractere  d'une  ceuvre  litteraire,  sincere  et  de  haute 
valeur  poetique." 

Verlaine's  poetical  output  after  his  release  from 
prison  and  the  publication  of  Sagesse  was  more  mature 
and  original,  though  less  brilliant.  Jadis  et  Naguere 
contained  some  poems  in  his  best  vein — likely  written, 
however,  at  an  earlier  period.  In  Amour  the  poet 
celebrates  in  graceful  verses  his  friendship  for  Lucien 
Letinois.  Here,  also,  may  be  found  some  of  his  strong- 
est, most  original  and  best  poised  work.  The  note  is 
largely  personal.  In  Parallelement,  to  quote  Stefan 
Zweig,  "he  won  the  crown  of  all  pornographic  works 
with  perverse  and  indecent  poems."  Bonheur  is  a  less 
ardent  Sagesse  where  the  note  of  self-pity  predominates 
and  Chansons  pour  Elle  and  Odes  en  Son  Honneur 
celebrate  his  various  mistresses.  These  two  books  are 
distorted  echoes  of  The  Good  Song  resounding  in  an 
empty  heart.  Liturgies  Intimes  are  little  less  puerile 
than  portions  of  Sagesse.  With  advancing  years  his 
work  showed  steady  deterioration,  and  his  voice,  for 
the  most  part,  was  that  of 

".    .    .    un  vieux  poete  erre  dans  la  gouttiere 
Avec  la  triste  voix  d'un  fantome  frileux." 

As  Verlaine's  poetry  defies  analysis  in  its  original 
language,  so  does  it  defy  interpretation  in  English. 

"How  much  of  his  work  will  live?"  asks  a  writer 
reviewing  Lepelletier's  Life  of  Verlaine  in  Current  Lit- 
erature. "Perhaps  a  hundred  pages,  but  those  pages 
will  give  him  a  place  among  the  poets  of  the  iQth  cen- 
tury. He  is  nothing  of  a  teacher;  he  throws  no  illumi- 


The  Work  33 

nating  ray  upon  the  problems  that  vex  humanity;  he 
speaks  to  us  neither  of  fortitude  nor  hope,  but  in  its 
verbal  magic  and  power  to  evoke  half-forgotten  moods 
and  emotions,  the  best  of  Verlaine's  work  is  the  pure 
gold  of  literature." 


IV 

THE  CULT  OF  VERLAINE 

That  the  quality  of  much  of  the  work  of  Paul  Ver- 
laine  is  of  the  highest  literary  value,  and  that  his  fame 
is  growing  rather  than  diminishing  are  incontestable 
facts. 

George  A.  Tournoux,  in  his  Bibliographic  Verlaini- 
enne  (Leipzig,  Libraire  E.  Rowohlt,  1912)  indicates 
1,044  references  upon  the  subject  of  his  monograph. 
This  work,  although  of  great  value  to  the  student, 
makes  no  pretension  to  being  complete.  The  compiler 
of  this  interesting  contribution  to  letters  says  in  the 
introduction:  "We  have  thought  it  necessary  to  dis- 
regard the  notations  in  the  general  histories  of  French 
literature,  the  encyclopedias,  and  the  works  of  ephem- 
eral value,  also  those  studies  where  the  question  of 
Verlaine  appears  merely  in  an  accidental  or  summary 
manner.  .  .  If  we  have  departed  from  this  line  of 
conduct  in  favor  of  certain  articles,  it  is  because  of  the 
eminence  of  their  authors  as  well  as  the  character  of 
the  periodical,  or  that  the  circumstances  under  which 
they  were  published  gave  them  a  particular  value." 

The  Tournoux  monograph,  which  carries  the  work 
of  research  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  year  1911,  is 
divided  into  two  sections.  The  first  deals  with  the  work 
of  Verlaine  published  in  France.  One  notation  (107) 
in  this  division  shows  the  complete  works  of  the  poet 
to  have  been  published  in  Leipzig  by  Rowohlt  in  1910. 
Interesting  also  to  note  are  the  books  of  a  pornographic 

[35] 


36  Paul  Ferlaine 

character  which  have  at  times  fallen  under  the  ban 
of  the  courts: 

1867 

5.  Les  Amies.     Scenes  d'amour  saphique.     Sonnets. 

Par  le  licencie  Pablo  de  Herlagnez.     Bruxelles. 
Poulet-Malassis.     Petit  in- 12. 

6.  Les  Amies.     Scenes  d'amour  saphique.     Sonnets. 

Par  le  licencie,  Pablo  de  Herlagnez.     Segovie. 
1870.     Petit  in-i2. 

1890 

37.  Femmes.     Imprime  sous  le  manteau  et  ne  se  vend 
nulle  part.    in-i8. 

1904 

91.  Hombres.    Imprime  sous  le  manteau  et  ne  se  vend 
nulle  part.     in-i8. 

1907 

94.  La  Trilogie  erotique  de  Paul  Verlaine.    (Amies, 

Femmes,  Hombres).   Paris  et  Londres.   in-8. 
Quinze  eaux-fortes  de  Van  Troizem  et  un  avant- 
propos  par  un  bibliophile  verlainien. 

It  was  the  first  of  these,  Les  Amies  (The  Friends) 
dealing  with  female  friendships  of  a  Lesbian  nature, 
which  caused  the  order  of  arrest  of  the  publisher,  the 
redoubtable  A.  P.  Malassis,  of  Brussels,  publisher,  also 
of  Baudelaire's  Fleurs  du  Mai. 

The  destruction  of  Les  Amies  was  ordered  by  the 
courts  of  Lille,  May  6,  1868.  Lepelletier,  in  his 
biography  of  the  poet,  writes  of  this  book  with  much 
naivete,  as  follows:  "These  Sonnets  .  .  .  are  now  in- 
offensive in  consequence  of  later  publications  in  France, 
both  in  prose  and  verse,  by  numerous  writers  on  the 
same  dangerous  subject;  but  at  that  time  (date  of 


The  Cult  of  Verlaine  37 

publication),  even  for  a  Poulet-Malassis  it  was  an 
audacious  undertaking." 

Gautier  said  the  inexpressible  does  not  exist!  Les 
Amies  in  their  complete  form  are  now  included  in  most 
of  Verlaine's  works — that  is,  in  other  than  the  English 
language.  The  pseudonym,  Pablo  de  Herlagnez,  bears 
witness  that  youth  is  often  more  circumspect  than  age. 
Les  Amies  was  published  when  the  poet  was  quite 
young. 

In  1899-1900  Vanier  published  in  Paris  five  volumes 
of  the  poet's  work.  This  edition  consists  of  three 
volumes  of  verse  and  two  of  prose.  The  work  is 
loosely  edited  and  contains  numerous  errors.  The  gen- 
eral reader  will  find  in  the  anthology  of  1891,  Choix  de 
Poesies,  (Charpentier  et  Fasquell.  Paris,  in-12)  a 
good  presentation  of  the  poet's  style.  It  contains  also 
an  excellent  portrait  by  Eugene  Carriere,  and  an  admi- 
rable preface  by  Frangois  Coppee. 

An  edition  de  luxe  of  Fetes  Galantes  was  published 
in  1903  by  Le  Maison  du  Livre.  Paris,  in-8.  This 
contains  twenty-four  drawings  and  an  equal  number  of 
ornamentations  by  Roubadi. 

Part  second  of  the  Bibliographic  Verlainienne  is 
given  to  notices  of  translations,  critical  studies,  and  the 
general  diffusion  of  Verlaine's  work,  both  in  France  and 
elsewhere.  The  notations  in  the  chapter  devoted  to 
France  and  French  speaking  countries  number  two 
hundred  and  fifty-one. 

In  Hommage  a  Verlaine  (Paris.  Messein.  1910. 
in-4)  is  found  a  book  containing  the  appreciation  of 
sixty-six  of  the  foremost  writers  of  France,  both  men 
and  women. 

Verlaine's  popularity  in  Spain  is  attested  by  an  an- 
thology of  translations  into  Spanish  by  M.  Machado, 
published  in  Madrid  in  1908.  This  collection  em- 
braces practically  all  the  poems  worthy  of  preservation. 
There  are  several  other  Spanish  anthologies  less  com- 


38  Paul  Verlaine 

plete.  Jimenez  writes  in  the  Helios  (October,  1903) 
Pablo  Verlaine  y  su  novia  la  luna  (Paul  Verlaine  and 
his  bride  the  moon.  Llanto  en  mi  corazon.  .  .  (It 
weeps  in  my  heart)  is  set  to  music  by  R.  Villar  from 
words  by  E.  Diez-Canedo.  (Madrid  et  Bilboa.  Casa- 
Dotesio.) 

Bolivia,  Argentina,  Mexico,  Santo  Domingo  and 
other  Spanish-American  countries  know  the  poet 
through  translations  by  native  writers. 

In  Italy  Pica  and  Ermini  have  written  much  con- 
cerning the  poet.  There  are  no  anthologies  in  book 
form.  Lombroso  pays  his  respect  (?)  to  the  poet  in 
Nuovi  studi  sol  genio  (New  studies  on  genius). 

Roumania  has  only  one  collection  of  the  poet's  work 
in  the  anthology  of  D.  Anghel  and  St.  O.  Josif.  (Bu- 
charest. "Minerva."  1903.  in-i6.) 

In  Russia  Verlaine  is  popular  and  has  been  widely 
read,  both  in  the  French  and  Slavonic  tongues.  Brous- 
sov's  anthology,  published  in  Moscow  in  1911,  is  the 
longest.  Petrograd  has  a  translation  by  F.  Sologoub, 
1908.  Russia  is  also  credited  with  a  number  of  other, 
though  shorter,  collections. 

To  English  readers  it  appears  singular  that  the  cult 
of  Verlaine  should  be  so  widespread  in  Germany.  To 
those,  however,  who  have  closely  followed  the  trend 
of  German  literature  and  thought  during  the  past  two 
decades,  the  fact  is  not  surprising.  Tournoux  notations 
for  Germany  are  as  follows : 

1900 

564.  O.  Hauser.    Paul  Verlaine.    Berlin.    Concordia. 

Petit  in-i6. 

565.  P.  Wiegler.     Baudelaire  und  Verlaine.     Berlin. 

Behr's  Verlag.     in-i6. 

1902 

566.  Paul  Verlaine.     Gedichte.     Eine  Anthologie  der 

besten   Ubertragungen.      Herausgegeben   von 


The  Cult  of  Verlaine  39 

Stefan  Zweig.    Berlin  et  Leipzig.    Schuster  ct 
Loeffler.     in-i6. 

567.  E.  Singer.    Paul  Verlaine.     Gedichte.    Vienne  et 

Leipzig.     Neue  Literaturanstalt.     in-i6. 

568.  H.  Kirchner.  Gedichte  von  Paul  Verlaine.  Halle. 

Hendel.     in-i6. 

569.  O.  Handler.     Paul  Verlaine.     Ausgewahlte  Ge- 

dichte.   Strasburg.    Heitz  ct  Muendel.    in-i6. 

571.  R.  Schaukal.     Verlaine-Heredia.     Nachdichtun- 

gen.     Berlin.     Oesterheld.     in-8. 

572.  W.    von   Kalckreuth.      Paul   Verlaine.      Ausge- 

wahlte Gedichte.  Leipzig.  Insel-Verlag.  in-i6. 

Among  other  writers  who  have  contributed  to  the 
diffusion  of  the  poet's  works  in  Germany  are  Arnold, 
Mehring,  Ostwald,  George,  Gundlach,  Abels,  Bethge, 
Jaffe,  Evers  and  Henckell.  Nearly  all  the  leading 
German  magazines,  as  well  as  newspapers,  have  pub- 
lished notices  upon  Verlaine  and  his  work. 

In  Holland,  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Poland, 
Hungary,  Greece,  Portugal  and  Bohemia,  the  poet  has 
found  appreciative  readers. 

In  English  speaking  countries,  Verlaine  has  been 
appreciated  but  not  widely  read.  Perhaps  the  irregu- 
larities of  his  conduct  during  his  life  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public  more  than  his  work. 

George  Moore,  Arthur  Symons,  F.  A.  Cazals,  John 
Gray,  Ernest  Dowson  and  Ashmore  Wingate  are  prom- 
inent among  English  writers  who  have  spread  his  fame. 
To  George  Moore,  more  than  to  any  other,  is  due  the 
credit  of  introducing  him  to  the  English  public,  and  no 
one  has  written  more  interestingly  of  the  poet.  Until 
the  present,  Wingate's  translation  has  been  the  longest 
in  English.  Symons'  translations,  all  too  few  in  num- 
ber, surpass  in  workmanship  any  heretofore  published 
in  English.  These  have  appeared  in  the  Mosher  col- 
lection of  gift  books  in  America. 

In  many  ways  the  translation  of  Verlaine's  poems  by 


4O  Paul  Verlaine 

Gertrude  Hall,  translator  of  Chantecler,  is  most 
satisfactory.  It  is  to  be  regretted  the  collection  is  so 
abridged.  Published  by  Stone  &  Kimball,  Chicago, 
1895.  Verlaine  has  been  known  to  American  readers 
chiefly  through  this  work. 

Throughout  his  life  Verlaine  was  an  interesting  sub- 
ject for  artists.  Degas  painted  him  in  the  Absinthe 
Drinker,  and  Zorn,  Pearson,  Cazals,  Carriere  and 
many  others  have  contributed  interesting  studies. 
Cazals'  drawing,  which  hangs  in  the  National  Museum 
of  the  Luxembourg,  Paris,  is  most  striking.  Here  the 
idealization  is  marked.  The  poet  is  no  longer  the  man 
of  enigmatic  bumps  and  grotesque  visage,  but  the  in- 
mate of  a  hospital — a  neutral  spot  on  the  borderland 
of  Death — and  all  his  being  seems  blurred  with  in- 
effable mystery. 

Numerous  composers  have  set  his  songs  to  music — 
poems  so  musical  in  themselves  that  music  of  another 
seems  almost  a  profanation.  In  America  John  Alden 
Carpenter  has  set  to  music  four  poems.  Published  by 
Schirmer,  New  York. 

The  poet's  statue  stands  in  the  Luxembourg  gardens, 
and  an  annual  dinner  is  given  in  Paris  to  the  memory 
of  this  great  child — for  all  poets  are  only  men  who 
have  kept  fresh  in  their  hearts  the  fancies  of  child- 
hood— and  Verlaine  kept  also  the  weaknesses. 

BERGEN  APPLEGATE. 

May,  1916. 


POEMS  SATURNINE 
(POEMES  S4TURNIENS) 


TO  EUGENE  CARRIERE 

J.  HE  Wise  of  old,  as  learned  as  men  today, 
Believed,  and  this  point  yet  is  not  quite  clear, 
That  they  could  read  their  future  in  the  skies, 
And  that  each  soul  was  guided  by  a  star. 
(Men  have  railed  much  nor  have  they  paused  to  think 
How  foolish  and  deceiving  laughter  is 
Concerning  all  these  mysteries  nocturne.) 
Now  those  who  have  been  born  in  SATURN'S  reign, 
(Red  planet  dear  to  necromancers)  have, 
Between  them,  so  magicians  used  to  say, 
Full  measure  of  unhappiness  and  bile. 
The  Imagination,  infirm  and  weak, 
Distorts  the  subtile  efforts  of  the  Will, 
And  in  their  veins  the  poisoned  blood-stream  flows 
Like  lava,  withering  all  before,  so  that 
The  sad  Ideal  often  is  put  out. 
So  must  they  suffer,  these  Saturnians, 
So  must  die — admitting  they  are  mortal. 
Their  plan  of  life  was  fashioned  line  by  line 
According  with  an  influence  malign. 

P.  V. 


[43 


RESIGNATION 


CHILD  I  DREAMED 

ALWAY  OF  KOHINOOR, 

OF  PAPAL  SHOW  AND  PERSIAN  SPLENDOR. 
HELIOGABALUS  AND  SARDANAPALUS ! 

My  young  desire  created,  'neath  domes  splashed  o'er 
With  gold,  'mid  sounds  of  music,  perfumes  fresh, 
The  wild  delirious  harems  of  the  flesh. 

Today  more  calm,  with  no  less  ardent  mind, 
But  knowing  life  and  how  its  ways  should  lie, 
I  am  more  fit  to  check  my  ancient  folly, 
Though  even  yet  I  cannot  be  resigned. 

So  be !    My  taste  for  grandeur  shows  betime. 
But  fie  on  phrases  fine  and  fair  things  human  I 
Henceforth  I'll  hate  the  merely  pretty  woman, 
The  prudent  soul  and  the  resounding  rhyme. 

[44] 


CHOIIA 


NEVERMORE 


EMEMBRANCE, 


REMEMBRANCE,  WHAT  WOULDST  THOU? 

THE  AUTUMN 
THRUSH  ON  LANGUID  AIRS  IS  SADLY  BLOWN, 

And  the  sun's  wan  rays  monotonously  thrown 

On  yellowing  fields  where  weary  winds  make  moan. 

She  and  I  were  alone,  walking  and  dreaming, 
Our  hair  and  our  thoughts  in  the  wind  over-bold. 
Suddenly  she  turned  toward  me,  her  soft  eyes  gleaming, 
"Which  was  your  happiest  day?"  said  her  voice  of  pure  gold 

With  its  timbre  angelic,  sonorous  and  sweet. 
And  the  smile  that  I  gave  for  reply  was  discreet 
As  the  kiss  that  I  gave  her  white  hand  in  devotion. 

— Ah !    The  first  flowers  and  their  perfume  one  sipsl 
And  the  low  sound  with  its  charming  emotion — 
The  first  "yes"  that  comes  from  well-beloved  lips. 

[45] 


46  Paul  Verlaine 


III 

AFTER  THREE  YEARS 


I 


PUSHED  aside  the  narrow  swinging  gate 
To  stroll  within  the  garden  green  and  small, 
Some  morning  rays  the  sun  let  sweetly  fall, 
Spangling  the  flowers  with  jewels,  as  in  state. 

Nothing  has  changed.  I  have  seen  all:  the  vine, 
The  humble  arbor  with  its  rustic  chairs.  .  . 
The  jet  of  water  playing  silvery  airs, 
And  the  old  aspen  with  its  plaint  divine ! 

The  roses  nod,  as  of  old,  and  one  sees 
The  lily  proudly  balance  on  the  breeze. 
The  larks  that  go  and  come  I  know  them  yet. 

I  even  found  Valleda  standing  there 

At  the  walk's  end,  her  plaster  scaled,  and  bare, 

— Frail,  'mid  the  pungent  scent  of  mignonette. 


IV 

Vow 

.H !  the  raptures !  the  first  mistresses ! 
Gold  hair,  blue  eyes,  and  blossoms  of  the  flesh. 
The  odor  of  the  bodies  young  and  fresh. 
The  fearful  joy  of  the  first  shy  caresses ! 

Has  all  forever  gone — sweet  foolishness  I 
And  all  those  old  time  candors !  Ah,  returning 


Poems  Saturnine  47 

Toward  youth's  lost  spring  they've  fled,  the  winter 

spurning 
Of  my  ennui,  disgust  and  sore  distress ! 

So  here  am  I  at  last,  sad  and  alone, 
Cold  as  an  altar — colder  than  a  stone — 
Orphan,  who  knows  no  elder  sister's  love. 

O  woman,  whose  caress  my  soul  beguiled, 
Brunette,  pensive  and  sweet,  that  naught  can  move, 
Who  sometimes  kisses  gently,  like  a  child! 


V 

LASSITUDE 


O 


A  batallas  de  amor  campo  de  pluma. 
(Gongora). 


THE  sweetness,  O  the  sweetness,  O  the  sweetness ! 
Calm    your    fevered     transports    for    a    while,    my 

charming ! 

Be  like  a  sister,  sometimes,  peacefully  warming, 
And  soothing  for  one  fleeting  hour  love's  wild  excess. 

Be  languorous,  making  the  drowsy  caresses; 
All  equal  your  sighs  and  your  glances  obsession. 
Go,  the  jealous  embrace  and  pang  of  possession 
Are  not  worth  the  price  of  the  long  lying  kiss. 

But  in  your  dear  heart  of  gold,  you  tell  me,  my  child. 
The  false  passion  goes  sounding  her  clarion  wild. 
Let  her  sound  at  her  ease,  hussy  delirious. 

Put  your  forehead  on  my  forehead,  your  hand  in  mine, 
And  make  me  the  oaths  you  will  break,  oh,  so  fine. 
And  weep  till  the  dawn,  O  little  imperious ! 


48  Paul  Verlaine 


o 


VI 
MY  FAMILIAR  DREAM 


"FTTIMES  I  have  this  strange  and  penetrating 

dream : 

An  unknown  woman  whom  I  love  and  who  loves  me, 
And  who,  though  never  changing,  ever  seems  to  be 
Another — in  whose  eyes  I  see  a  well  known  gleam. 

She  understands.  My  heart  that  doth  transparent  seem 
For  her  alone,  alas,  ceases  also  to  be 
For  her,  alone,  a  problem ;  and  her  tears  fall  free 
Upon  my  pallid  brow,  refreshing  as  a  stream. 

Brunette,  or  blonde,  or  Titian-haired?  I  do  not  knowl 
Her  name?  'Twas  sweet  I  well  recall  when  spoken  low, 
As  sweet  as  those  beloved  ones  by  Life  exiled. 

Her  glance   is   that   of   statues — looks  that  vaguely 

thrill— 
And  for  her  voice — calm,  faintly  sounding,  gravely 

mild, 
It  hath  the  echo  of  dear  voices  long  since  still. 


T< 


VII 

To  A  WOMAN 


O  you  these  songs  for  the  consoling  grace 
Of  your  great  eyes  where  laughs  and  weeps  a  dream; 
For  your  pure  soul  whose  goodness  sheds  a  beam — 
To  you  these  songs  out  of  my  deep  distress. 


Poems  Saturnine  49 

What  hideous  nightmares  haunt  me  in  this  place; 
Foolish,  jealous,  furious,  and  that  seem 
To  multiply  like  wolves  whose  white  fangs  gleam, 
Threatening  the  while  to  leave  their  bloody  trace. 

Oh !  how  I  suffer,  suffer  and  repine, 

So  that  the  first  grief  of  the  world's  first  man 

Driven  from  Eden  scarce  compares  with  mine! 

And  may  your  cares  be  like,  or  lighter  than 
The  swallows  on  a  sky  of  afternoon, 
Dear — on  a  fair  September  day,  in  tune. 


ETCHINGS 
I 

PARISIAN  SKETCH 

T 

JL  HE  moon  was  spreading  pale  tints  of  zinc 

Obliquely  let  fall; 

And  the  rising  smoke-shapes  made  one  think 
Of  a  figure  five  o'er  the  house  tops  tall. 

The  sky  was  gray,  with  a  wind  that  sighed 

Like  a  sad  bassoon; 
And  afar  a  shivering  tomcat  cried 
With  the  strange  frail  notes  of  a  ghostly  tune. 

And  I  dreamed  of  Plato  as  I  strolled  on, 

And  of  Phidias, 

And  of  Salamis,  and  of  Marathon, 
'Neath  the  blinking  eyes  of  blue  jets  of  gas. 


5°  Paul  Verlame 

III 

MARINE 

T 

JL  HE  deep  sounding  sea 
Throbs  under  the  eye 
Of  the  sad  moon  on  high — 
Throbs  mournfully. 

Whilst  the  lightning,  sheer, 
Cuts  brutally  down 
Through  heavens  of  brown 
With  long  zigzag  clear. 

And  the  waves  rising  high 
With  long  convulsive  bound, 
From  reef  to  reef  resound, — 
Go,  come,  shine  and  cry. 

In  the  heavens,  where  flee 
The  storm  gods  in  wonder, 
Fierce  roars  the  thunder 
Formidably.  .  . 


Ti 


IV 

EFFECTS  OF  NIGHT 


HE  night.    The  rain.    A  pale  sky  cut  with  ragged 

jet 

Black  towers  and  spires  that  are  today  the  silhouette 
Of  an  old  Gothic  town,  dim  in  the  distant  gray. 
The  plain.    A  gibbet  full  of  hanging  rogues  that  sway 
Shaken  and  torn  by  cutting  beaks  of  famished  crows, 


Poems  Saturnine  51 

And  dancing  in  the  dark  strange  life-like  jigs  in  rows, 
The  while  their  dangling  feet  the  wolves  make  pas- 
ture of. 

Some  bushes  with  their  scattered  thorns,  and  then  above 
Some  hollies  turning  as  with  horror  their  wet  leaves 
Now  to  the  right,  now  left,  as  when  the  eye  perceives 
Them  on  the  sooty  background  of  an  artist's  sketch. 
And  then,  around  three  livid  barefoot  prisoners  stretch 
A  host  of  halberdiers,  like  giants  marching  by; 
Whose  straight  set,  harrow  pointed  pikes  seem  to  the 

eye 
The  rain's  keen  lances  thrown  from  a  black  sky. 


GROTESQUES 


T, 


HEIR  legs  serve  for  horses, 
For  all  gifts  the  gold  of  their  eyes, 
By  the  road  of  adventures 
They  go,  torn  and  despised. 

The  wise,  indignant,  harangue  them; 
Fools  rail  at  their  hazardous  way; 
The  children  put  out  their  tongues 
And  the  girls  mock  them  all  day. 

They  are  the  ridiculous; 
Odious  and  malignant  they  seem. 
They  have  in  the  twilight 
The  air  of  a  bad  dream. 


52  Paul  Verlaine 

On  their  bitter  guitars 
These  libertines  strike  the  shrill  string; 
Intoning  the  chants  bizarre, 
Nostalgic  and  revolting. 


And  at  last  in  their  eyes 

Laughs  and  weeps,  or  fastidiously  nods, 

The  love  of  things  eternal — 

The  old  dead  and  the  ancient  gods ! 


Go  then,  old  vagabonds ! 

Wander,  noxious  creatures  of  old  vice, 

Along  abyss  and  strand 

Shut  out  from  paradise ! 


For  nature  joins  with  man 
To  punish  rightly  by  and  by, 
The  melancholy  pride  that  makes 
You  march  with  forehead  high. 


Venging  on  you  the  blasphemy 
Of  vast  hopes  and  violent  intents; 
Bruising  your  foreheads  curst 
With  the  rude  elements. 


June  burns,  and  December 

Freezes  your  flesh  where  the  bones  show  through. 

The  fever  possesses  your  limbs 

Wracked  and  covered  with  dew. 


Poems  Saturnine  53 

Wounded  and  repulsed  by  all, 
When  death  shall  seek  you  out  in  turn, 
Meager  and  cold,  your  carcasses 
Even  the  wolves  will  spurn! 


SOMBER  LANDSCAPES 

I 
SETTING  SUNS 


A 


FEEBLE  dawn 
On  the  fields  shining 
Pours  the  melancholy 
Of  the  suns  declining. 
The  melancholy 
Refrain  of  sweet  songs, 
My  heart  forgetting 
To  the  suns'  declining. 
And  with  strange 
Dreams  in  bands, 
Like  the  suns 
Declining  on  the  strands, 
Phantoms  (red  ones) 
Defiling  without  ceasing — 
Defiling,  one  by  one, 
With  the  great  suns 
Declining  on  the  sands. 


54  Paul  Verlaine 


M» 


II 
TWILIGHT  OF  MYSTIC  EVE 


[EMORY,  here  with  the  Twilight 
Reddens  and  trembles  on  the  distant  rim 
Of  ardent  sky,  where  Hope  glows  like  a  bright 
Enduring  flame,  that,  wavering  and  slim, 
Draws  back  and  then  expands  like  some  far  dim 
Mysterious  garden;  where  flower  on  flower 
— Dahlia,  lily,  tulip  and  buttercup — 
Grow  rank  upon  a  trellis,  blooming  hour  by  hour 
In  flaming  rings;  where  noxious  mists  exude 
A  perfume  strong  and  warm,  whose  poison 
— Dahlia,  lily,  tulip  and  buttercup — 
Drowning  my  soul,  my  senses,  and  my  reason, 
Unites,  in  one  vast  lassitude, 
Memory  here  with  the  Twilight. 


Poems  Saturnine  55 

III 

PROMENADE  SENTIMENTAL 

J.  HE  sunset  darted  its  level  beam 
Where  the  wind-rocked  water  lilies  dream; 
The  water  lilies  calm  and  pale 
That  shine  where  reeds  are  green  and  frail. 
And  I  wandered  alone  with  a  heart  full  sore, 
By  the  pool  where  the  willows  line  the  shore, 
Where  the  vague  mist  wakened  a  phantom  tall 
That  wept  in  the  voice  of  the  wild  fowls'  call, 
When  they  beat  their  wings  by  the  willows  white 
Where  I  wandered  alone  in  the  shrouding  night 
Through  the  shadows  that  drowned  the  level  beam 
Where  the  wind-rocked  water  lilies  dream — 
The  water  lilies  calm  and  pale 
That  shine  where  the  reeds  are  green  and  frail. 


T 


IV 

VALPURGIS  NIGHT,  CLASSIC 


HIS  is  rather  the  sabbat  of  the  second  Faust,  than 

the  other; 

A  rhythmic  sabbat — rhythmic  as  a  lay 
Is  rhythmic.     Imagine  a  garden  by  Lenotre — 
Correct,  ridiculous  and  gay. 

Flower  beds  in  circle — in  their  midst,  the  fountains; 

walks 

Arrow  straight  and  sylvan  gods  in  marble;  gods  marine 

In  bronze;  with  here  and  there  a  Venus  coyly  draped; 

The  trees  aligned;  a  bowling  green; 


56  Paul  Verlaine 

Chestnut  trees;  and  flowering  plants  forming  a  leafy 

dune; 

Some  dwarfed  rose  bushes  set  about  with  loving  care; 
Beyond,  the  yews  well  placed  in  triangle.     The  moon 
Of  summer  shining  softly  there. 

Midnight  sounds,  and  wakens  in  the  depth  of  this  old 

park 
A  melancholy  air — a  heavy,  slow  and  sadly  listless 

air — 

A  huntsman's  lay,  sweet,  low  and  melancholy  as 
The  hunting  song  in  Tannhauser. 

Then  comes  a  veiled  and  distant  chant  of  horns,  whose 

tenderness 
Of  sense  quite  overcomes  the  soul's  distress  with  sweet 

accords, 

Harmoniously  discordant  in  their  wild  excess; 
And  to  this  call  of  horns 

There  comes  a  band  of  white-robed,  slowly  moving 

forms 

Diaphanous,  on  which  the  moon  beams  seem  to  play 
With  opal  tints  among  the  shadows  of  the  branches 

green — 

A  Watteau  dreamed  of  by  Raffet. 

And  mingling  with  the  soft  green  shadows  of  the  trees, 
With  gestures  languishing  and  full  of  grief  profound, 
These  forms  amid  the  bronzes  begin  a  mystic  dance — 
A  dance  wherein  they  circle  slowly  round. 

These    swaying  spectres — are    they  nothing   but  the 

thought 
Of  some  poor  drunken  bard — or  the  remorse  in  his 

bewildered  head — 


Poems  Saturnine  57 

These  spectres  that  with  rhythmic  tread  dance  on  the 
turf? 

Or  are  they  simply  spirits  of  the  dead? 

Are  they  then  thy  regrets,  O  dreamer  who  invites  this 

hell,— 
Thy  thoughts,  or  thy  remorse — say? — these  creatures 

spurned? 

These  spectres  that  some  maddening  impulse  sways ; 
Or  have  the  dead  to  madmen  turned? 

No  matter!  they  are  always  here,  these  phantoms  of 

the  brain, 

Making  their  mournful  round  and  winding  ever  on ; 
Whirling  like  atoms  in  the  clear  rays  of  the  sun, 
That  in  a  moment  suddenly  are  gone. 

Pallid  and  damp,  the  dawn  o'ercomes  them  one  by 

one — 

The  horns  and  all — they  pass  with  coming  day — 
Till  nothing  more  remains — nothing — but  a  garden  by 

Lenotre, 

Correct,  ridiculous  and  gay. 


AUTUMN  SONG 

.L /ONG  sobbing  winds, 
The  violins 

Of  autumn  drone, 
Wounding  my  heart 
With  languorous  smart 

In  monotone. 


58  Paid  Ferlaine 

Choking  and  pale, 
When  on  the  gale 

The  hour  sounds  deep, 
I  call  to  mind 
Dead  years  behind, 

And  I  weep. 

And  I,  going, 
Borne  by  blowing 

Winds  and  grief, 
Flutter,  here — there, 
As  on  the  air 

The  dying  leaf. 


T. 


VI 

THE  SHEPHERD'S  HOUR 


HE  moon  is  red  upon  the  eastern  sky, 
In  mists  that  dance  the  smoky  meadow  lies; 
Afar  one  hears  the  frog  that  shrilly  cries 
Among  the  reeds  where  twilight  zephyrs  die. 

The  marsh  flowers  close  beside  the  water's  edge; 
The  poplars  profile  on  the  skies'  far  rim, 
Serried  and  straight,  their  specters  vague  and  dim; 
While  the  wandering  firefly  seeks  the  hedge. 

The  screech-owls  waking  take  their  noiseless  flight, 
Beating  the  black  air  with  their  heavy  wings; 
The  sky  is  filled  with  dully  shining  things, 
White,  Venus  glistens — it  is  Night. 


Poems  Saturnine  59 

VII 

THE  NIGHTINGALE 

.L/IKE  frightened  birds  loud  calling  in  their  flight, 

My  memories  beat  upon  me  with  their  might. 

Beat  on  the  yellow  foliage  of  my  heart, 

That,  like  a  lonely  alder  grown  apart, 

Mirrors  its  trunk  and  blighted  branches  wet 

In  the  dull  violet  waters  of  Regret 

That  slow  and  ever  mournfully  flow  near. 

And  then  the  troubled  sound  made  by  a  drear 

Moist  breeze  that  mounts,  then  slowly  dies  —  so  well 

That  in  the  end  I  hear  from  out  the  dell 

Only  the  low  clear  voice  celebrating 

The  absent  Loved  One  —  O  so  languishing  ! 

Of  that  sweet  bird,  my  first  Love,  whose  warm  lay 

Comes  back  again  as  in  the  first  glad  day; 

And  in  the  splendor  sad  a  glow  where  soon 

Rises  all  pale  and  solemnly  the  moon; 

A  melancholy  twilight  full  of  summer, 

Of  silence  and  obscurity  —  no  murmur 

Rocked  on  the  azure  that  the  sweet  wind  sweeps  — 

Only  the  tree  that  trembles  —  the  bird  that  weeps. 


was  playing  with  her  cat, 
Marvelous  it  was  to  see, 
Hands  and  paws,  tit  for  tat, 
In  the  gloom  so  playfully. 


60  Paul  Verlame 

One  was  hiding — then  a  pause ! 
'Neath  her  mittens,  finely  made, 
Gleamed  the  agate-pointed  claws, 
Keener  than  a  razor's  blade. 

Then  the  cat  more  tender  grew, 
And  its  steel-like  claws  withdrew. 
But  the  devil  watched  with  care.  .  . 

And  the  dimly  lighted  room 
Heard  her  laugh  that  circled  where 
Four  bright  eyeballs  cut  the  gloom. 


Ill 

SONG  OF  THE  INGENUES 


E  are  the  Ingenues 
With  braided  hair  and  eyes  of  blue 
Who  live  in  old  romances 
Unread  save  by  the  few. 

And  arm  in  arm  we  go, 
For  the  day  is  not  more  bright 
Than  the  crystal  of  our  thoughts, 
And  our  dreams  are  of  the  light. 

We  run  in  the  meadows 
Where  our  laughter  never  dies, 
From  dawn  until  the  vespers 
We  chase  the  butterflies. 

And  our  shepherds'  bonnets 
Keep  us  fresh  and  pale, 
And  our  dresses  white 
Are  so  extremely  frail. 


Poems  Saturnine  61 

The  Caussades  and  the  Richelieux, 
And  the  Knights  Faublas  all  pass, 
But  they  only  waste  their  ogling, 
Their  salutes  and  sighs  "alas!" 

For  in  vain  these  foolish  mimics 
Can  only  break  the  nose 
Against  the  folds  ironic 
Of  our  skirts,  so  like  the  snows. 

And  thus  our  lofty  station 
Disturbs  these  gallants  all — 
These  warm  imaginations, 
And  leapers  of  the  wall. 

Howe'er,  with  hearts  fast  beating, 
Clandestine  thoughts  between, 
We  sigh  to  know  the  lovers 
Future — and  libertine. 


A 


V 

MONSIEUR  PRUDHOMME 


SOLEMN  man  is  he — father,  and  mayor  benign. 
His  ears  half  buried  in  his  collar  high.    His  eyes 
Lost  in  a  stupid  dream — a  dream  that  ever  flies — 
And  his  embroidered  slippers  where  the  spring  flowers 

shine ! 

Ah,  what  to  him  the  golden  stars — the  hedges  fine 
Where  in  the  shadow  sings  the  bird?    And  what  the 

skies 

To  him,  or  the  green  meadow  that  in  silence  lies? 
For  Monsieur  Prudhomme  has  this  laudable  design 


62  Paul  Verlaine 

To  make  the  rich  Monsieur  Machin  his  son-in-law. 
A  pudgy,  fat,  respected  botanist,  he  saw 
In  every  poet  born  a  good-for-nothing  cheat. 

These  bearded,  uncombed  loafers,  how  he  hates  them 

— whew ! 

They  fill  his  soul  with  horror,  all  this  shameful  crew — 
And  flowery  springtime  shines  upon  his  slippered  feet ! 


T, 


SUB  URBE 


HE  little  yews  of  the  cemetery 
Tremble  before  the  wintry  blasts 
In  the  clear  cold  light. 

With  a  sound  mournful  and  sad 

The  crosses  of  wood  over  the  new  graves 

Vibrate  with  an  abnormal  tone. 

Silent  as  the  streams, 

But  full  of  tears  as  the  floods, 

The  sons,  the  mothers,  and  the  widows 

Through  the  paths  of  the  sad  enclosure 

Wander,  a  slow  procession, 

To  the  wounding  rhythm  of  sobs. 

The  yielding  soil  under  their  feet  seems  to  cry. 
On  high  the  huge  clouds  twist 
And  tear  themselves  with  fury. 

Penetrating  as  remorse 

Falls  the  heavy  cold  that  o'erpowers, 

Seeming  to  reach  even  to  the  dead. 

To  the  poor  dead,  who  are  always 
Alone,  and  who  tremble  unceasingly, 
— Forgotten  by  some  or  wept  by  others. 


Poems  Saturnine  63 

Ah,  come  quickly,  O  thou  Springtime, 
With  thy  clear  and  caressing  sun, 
With  thy  sweet  birds  chattering ! 

Make  bloom  with  enchanting 
Glory  the  gardens  and  the  fields 
That  the  rude  winter  holds  in  distress ! 

And,  when  the  sunsets  fall 
Spreading  with  gold  the  boundless  sky, 
Soothe  with  sweet  odors  and  with  songs 

Deaf  absent  ones,  your  mournful  sleep! 


SERENADE 

.L/IKE  the  voice  of  one  dead  yet  singing 

From  the  depth  of  the  grave, 
Hear  thou,  O  my  mistress,  the  stinging 

Shrill  voice  of  thy  slave. 

Open  thy  soul  and  thy  ear  to  the  sound 

Of  my  mandolin; 
For  thee  have  I  made,  for  thee  to  resound, 

This  song  cruel  and  thin. 

I  sing  to  thine  eyes,  they  are  onyx  and  golden, 

No  shadows  are  there; 
To  thy  bosom,  as  Lethe,  the  olden — 

To  the  Styx  of  thy  hair. 

Like  the  voice  of  one  dead  yet  singing 

From  the  depth  of  the  grave, 
Hear  thou,  O  my  mistress,  the  stinging 

Shrill  voice  of  thy  slave. 


64  Paul  Verlaine 

Then  I  praise  over-much,  as  befitting, 

Thy  flesh  ever  blest, 
Whose  opulent  perfume  comes  flitting 

Through  my  nights  of  unrest. 

And  I  sing  of  thy  red  lips,  intently — 

Lips  red  as  a  jewel; 
Of  the  martyrdom  laid  on  me  gently, 

My  Angel — my  Ghoul  1 

Open  thy  soul  and  thy  ear  to  the  sound 

Of  my  mandolin ; 
For  thee  have  I  made,  for  thee,  to  resound 

This  song  cruel  and  thin. 


A  DAHLIA 

V^OURTESAN  with  hard  breast  and  eye  opaque  and 

brown, 

That  slowly  opens  like  the  calm  eyes  of  a  steer, 
Your  thick  stem  shines  like  marble,  newly  cut  and  clear. 

Flower  plump  and  rich,  yet  odorless,  all  your  renown 
Is  in  your  tempting  body,  serene  as  summer  skies, 
That  dully  glows,  displaying  its  rare  harmonies. 

Nor  have  you  flesh  like  those  fair  ones  who  all  the  day 
Strew  on  the  summer  fields  the  rows  of  new  mown  hay, 
Enthroning  you,  dumb  idol,  'midst  the  incense  light. 

— Thus,  the  kingly  Dahlia,  clad  in  robes  of  splendor, 
Rises  without  pride  his  head  that  has  no  odor, 
Disdainfully,  among  the  taunting  jasmines  white. 


Poems  Saturnine  65 


NEVERMORE 


O 


NWARD,  my  poor  heart!     Onward,  my  old  ac- 
complice! 

Redress  and  paint  anew  each  flaunting  archway  bold. 

Burn  a  rancid  incense  on  the  altars  of  false  gold. 

Sow  with  flowers  the  borders  of  the  precipice. 

Onward  my  poor  heart!    Onward,  my  old  accomplice! 

Lift  to  God  thy  canticle,  rejuvenated  singer! 
Entone,  hoarse  organ,  thy  Te  Deums  rising  high. 
Men,  old  before  your  time,  paint  the  wrinkles  'neath 

your  eye, 

Cover  the  yellow  walls  with  tapestry  maroon. 
Lift  to  God  thy  canticle,  rejuvenated  singer! 

Sound  chimes !    Sound  little  bells !    Sound  bells ! 
For  my  vain  dream  has  taken  shape  and  now  I  hold 
It  pressed  between  my  arms — this  Happiness  of  old, 
That  flies  when  men  approach — this  joy  unspeakable. 
Sound  chimes !    Sound  little  bells !    Sound  bells ! 

Happiness  has  walked  side  by  side  with  me. 
But  Fate  can  ne'er  desist,  such  is  life's  fitful  scheme. 
The  worm  is  in  the  fruit,  the  awakening  in  the  dream, 
And  remorse  in  love,  such  is  the  law  of  life. 
Happiness  has  walked  side  by  side  with  me. 


IL  BACIO 

(THE  Kiss) 

T 

JL  HE  Kiss !    Pink  hollyhock  in  Love's  domain ! 
A  lively  tune  on  little  keys  of  pearl 
Framed  by  the  lips  of  some  dear  girl. 
An  angel's  song  with  love's  well  known  refrain. 


66  Paul  Verla'me 

Sweet  sounding  Kiss!     O  melody  divine! 
What  luxury  can  match  your  drunkenness? 
From  your  bright  cup  man  drinks  his  deepest  bliss, 
And  thus  grows  dizzy  as  from  heavy  wine. 

Like  the  Rhine's  vintage,  or  a  singer's  rhymes, 
You  soothe  our  pain — old  sorrows  cold 
Die  with  the  pout  upon  each  purple  fold — 
Let  Avon's  swan  or  Goethe  praise  betimes. 

I,  unworthy  bard  of  Paris,  offer  this : 

These  childish  verses,  sad  bouquet  at  best; 

Be  kind,  and  speed  you  on  your  gracious  quest; 

Light  on  her  stubborn  lips  and  laugh — thou  Kiss ! 


IN  THE  WOODS 

OOME, — the  innocent  or  the  lymphatic — 
Find  in  the  woods  charms  languorous  or  gay; 
Fresh  airs,  and  odors  warm.    Happy  are  they! 
Others  quail — dreamers — with  fears  ecstatic. 

They  are  happy !    I,  nervous,  that  a  dread 
Vague  and  oppressive  ever  seems  to  rule, 
I  tremble  in  the  forests  like  a  fool 
Who  fears  an  ambush  or  may  fear  the  dead. 

These  branches  thick,  like  billows  without  bound, 
Where  falls  black  silence  and  where  falls  a  shade 
Still  blacker — all  this  mournfulness  displayed, 
Fills  me  with  horror,  foolish,  yet  profound. 

Summer  eves  the  redness  of  the  sunsets 
Is  sunk  in  the  gray-blue  of  mist.s  they  paint 
With  fire  and  blood;  the  angelus  so  faint 
Seems  like  a  plaintive  cry  of  sad  regrets. 


Poems  Saturnine  67 

The  winds  rise  warm  and  strong ;  the  ripples  race 
With  force  renewed  where  the  thick  leaves  are  strewn 
On  the  high  oaks  that  seem  to  importune, — 
Then  scatter  like  a  fever  into  space. 

The  night  comes.    The  owl  flies.     This  is  the  time 
When  one  dreams  of  the  tales  the  old  folks  tell.   .  . 
Yonder,  yonder,  the  quick  springs  in  the  dell 
Whisper  like  robbers  plotting  some  dark  crime. 


MARCO 

HEN   Marco  passed,   the  young  men   ran   and 

turned 

To  see  her  eyes,  two  Sodomites  where  burned 
The  fires  of  Love,  destroying  without  grace, 
Cold  Friendship's  lowly  hut — sad  dwelling  place. 
And  all  around  danced  perfumes  without  name, 
Where  souls  forever  lost  were  weeping  cast. 
Upon  the  red  gold  of  her  hair  hung  fast 
A  charm,  and  from  her  robe  strange  music  came, 
When  Marco  passed. 

When  Marco  sang,  her  hands  upon  the  ivory 
Often  evoked  from  depths  too  black  to  see, 
Primitive  tunes,  long  lost  and  unprecise; 
Her  rich  voice  rising  in  the  paradise 
Of  a  vast  symphony  of  wondrous  dream, 
With  ecstasy  transported  as  it  sprang 
Toward  the  known  heavens,  all  who  heard  its  tang 
Of  silvery  music  sounding  some  vague  theme, 
When  Marco  sang. 

When  Marco  wept,  her  tears  and  wild  alarms 
Seemed  to  defy  the  very  sound  of  arms; 
Her  blood-red  lips  with  deeper  carmine  shown, 
And  her  despair  no  human  soul  has  known; 


68  Paul  Verlaine 

As  though  an  oil-fed  fire  that  flames  on  high, 
Her  wrath  shown  redder  as  it  higher  leapt; 
Some  lioness,  one  might  have  said,  that  kept 
Its  forest  wrath  with  ever  blazing  eye, 
When  Marco  wept. 

When  Marco  danced,  her  silken  skirt,  moire, 
Swept  like  the  tides  upon  a  summer  day; 
And  like  a  lithe  bamboo  her  snowy  thigh 
Bent  with  a  grace  that  made  her  breasts  reply. 
The  lightning  flashed;  her  marble  limbs  so  free, 
Emphatically  cynical,  enhanced 
Their  splendors  terne :  who  listened  heard  entranced 
The  sound  of  night  winds  blowing  in  a  tree, 
When  Marco  danced. 

When  Marco  slept,  what  odors  rich  of  amber 
Mixed  with  her  flesh,  filled  and  oppressed  her  chamber. 
The  sheets  revealed  her  back's  exquisite  line, 
And  in  the  shadows  of  the  curtains  fine 
Her  breath  arose,  light,  rhythmical  and  slow. 
In  calm  and  happy  sleep  her  eyes  were  kept, 
And  this  sweet  mystery  threw  a  charm  that  swept 
The  objects  vaguely  outlined,  row  on  row, 
When  Marco  slept. 

But  when  she  loved,  the  floods  of  luxury 
O'er  ran  as  though  a  wound,  open  and  free, 
Threw  its  red  blood  in  many  a  smoking  wave 
From  the  all  cruel  form  whose  crime  Forgave. 
And  o'er  the  soul's  high  walls  a  torrent  came, 
Drowning  the  thought,  sweeping  with  sad  array 
All  in  its  path,  then  bounding  on  its  way 
As  supple  and  devouring  as  a  flame — 
Then  frozen  lay. 


F&TES    GALLANT 
(F&TES  GAL  ANTES) 


MOONLIGHT 


Y, 


OUR  soul  is  like  a  landscape  always  glad, 
Peopled  by  merry  maskers  with  bright  eyes, 
Who  play  the  lute  and  dance  yet  are  half  sad 
Beneath  the  tinsel  of  their  quaint  disguise. 

Who  sing  upon  a  strangely  minor  mode 
Of  love's  success  and  life  so  opportune, 
As  they  go  tripping  lightly  on  their  road, 
Mingling  their  songs  with  rays  caught  from  the  moon, 

The  moonlight  rays  so  sad  but  O  how  fair! 
That  make  the  drowsy  birds  dream  in  their  trees, 
And  sob  with  ecstasy  the  fountain  clear 
That  from  its  marble  bed  jets  in  the  breeze. 


PANTOMIME 

JT IERROT,  who  gets  nothing  from  Clitander, 
Empties  a  flagon — failing  to  render 
Thanks — and,  being  practical,  cuts  the  pie. 

Cassandra,  who  is  nearly  lost  to  view, 

Weeps  for  her  disinherited  nephew 

Stage  tears,  that  all  ignore,  with  streaming  eye. 

The  rascal,  Harlequin,  plans  to  elope 

With  Columbine — a  vain  and  foolish  hope — 

And  then  saucily  pirouettes  four  times. 

Columbine  dreams,  strangely  surprised  to  feel 

Emotion  in  the  breeze's  soft  appeal, 

And  voices  in  her  heart.    What  foolish  mimes ! 


72  Paul  Verla'\ne 


Ti 


ON  THE  GRASS 


HE  Abbe  wanders. — And  you,  Marquis, 
Have  donned,  all  awry,  your  perruque. 
— This  old  wine  of  Cyprus,  I  see, 
Is  exquisite — less,  Camargo,  than  your  nuque. 

— My  flame.  .  . — Do,  mi,  sol,  la,  si. 
— Abbe,  your  cunning  we  unveil. 
— Ladies,  I  die,  indeed,  for  thee, 
If  in  trying  to  unhook  a  star  I  fail. 

— I  wish  to  be  a  little  dog  today. 

— Let  each  one  kiss  his  shepherdess,  and  soon — 

One  after  the  other!     Gentlemen — hey? 

— Do,  mi,  sol. — Ho !  Good  evening,  Mr.  Moon ! 


THE  WALK 

JL  AINTED  and  powdered  as  in  the  old  pastoral  days, 
Frail  amid  the  enormous  bows  of  ribbon  red, 
She  passes  'neath  the  somber  bower  that  gently  sways 
Above  a  walk  where  some  old  moss-green  seats  are 

spread; 

With  false  affected  ways  and  playful  foolish  air, 
Such  as  a  petted  gaudy  parrot  loves  to  wear. 
Her  robe  with  its  long  train  is  blue  and  her  fan  bright 
Held  by  slim  fingers  decked  with  many  a  large  ring, 
Is  gay  with  quaint  erotic  scenes,  so  vague  and  light 
She  smiles,  as  in  a  dream,  at  all  the  thoughts  they  bring. 
— A  blonde  indeed.    The  saucy  nose  with  lips  to  match. 
Mouth  carmine,  body  plump,  and  proud,  nor  knowing 

why. 

— Besides,  a  trifle  wiser  than  the  beauty-patch 
So  deftly  set  beneath  the  rather  silly  eye. 


Fetes  Gallant  73 


THE  PROMENADE 

trees,  and  sky  where  a  pale  light  clings, 

Seem  to  smile  on  our  costumes  clear, 
Floating  as  light  on  the  evening  air 
As  the  nonchalant  movement  of  wings. 

The  sweet  wind  ruffles  the  fountain's  pool, 
And  the  glow  of  the  sun,  seen  through 
The  shade  of  the  limes  on  the  avenue, 
Seems  a  fading  blue  in  the  twilight  cool. 

Deceivers  exquisite,  coquettes  that  charm, 
Hearts  tender  but  heedless  of  vows, 
Chaffing  delightfully,  with  mock  bows, 
Lover  and  loved  one  go  arm  in  arm. 

Now  a  hand,  O  so  tiny,  lets  fall 
A  sharp  slap  one  repays  with  a  lip 
Lightly  pressed  on  the  pink  and  white  tip 
Of  a  finger  immeasurably  small. 

For  this  fault  so  excessive,  uncouth, 
One  must  suffer  a  look  rather  dry, 
That  quite  strongly  contrasts,  by  the  by, 
With  the  pardoning  pout  of  the  mouth. 


T. 


IN  THE  GROTTO 


HERE !  I'll  kill  myself  at  your  feet, 
For  my  distress  is  infinite, 

And  the  terrible  tigress  of  Hyrcania  would  be  quite 
A  lamb  beside  you — prize  so  sweet! 


74  Paul  Verlaine 

Yes,  indeed,  thou  cruel  Clymene, 
This  sword  that  in  many  a  combat 
Has  laid  so  many  a  Scipio  and  Cyrus  flat, 

Will  end  my  life  and  all  its  bitter  pain! 

And  yet,  what  need  of  it  have  I, 
Who  would  descend  to  the  Elysian  Fields? 
Love,  pierced  he  not  my  heart  with  pointed  steels 
When  first  upon  me  fell  your  flashing  eye? 


Ti 


THE  INGENUS 


HE  high  heels  battled  with  long  skirts 
And  the  uneven  earth — a  breeze  unbid 
Showing  a  shining  limb,  too  often  hid, — 
And  we,  loving  this  play  of  flirts. 

A  zealous  insect,  darting,  flies 
To  trouble  the  beauty  'neath  the  branches  light; 
And  this  lightning  of  necks,  glowing  and  white, 
Dazzled  our  youthful,  foolish  eyes. 

Evening  fell — a  twilight  of  dim  Fall; 
The  belles  leaned  on  our  arms,  dreamy  and  slow, 
Saying  the  words  so  startling  and  so  low 
Our  souls  since  then  have  trembled  to  recall. 


A 


CORTEGE 


MONKEY,  beribboned  and  bland, 
Goes  skipping  before  with  quick  pace, 
As  she  crumples  a  kerchief  of  lace 
In  the  folds  of  her  finely  gloved  hand. 


Fetes  Gallant  75 

While  a  small  negro  boy,  very  black, 
Holds  in  his  bare  arms  the  long  train 
Of  her  robe,  that  he  strives  to  maintain, — 
Smoothing  the  wrinkles  back. 

The  monkey  cares  naught  but  to  gaze 
Intent  on  the  lady's  white  throat, 
Whose  contours,  so  dazzling,  denote 
A  torso,  godlike,  of  old  days. 

The  negro  boy,  shy  little  wight, 
Ofttimes  lifts  the  train  rather  high 
To  gaze  with  mischievous  eye 

On  that  which  he  dreams  of  by  night. 

|P«*3 

She  goes  on  her  way  by  the  stair, 
Unheeding  the  homage  or  gaze 
Of  these  insolent  beasts  or  their  ways, 
Disdaining  to  notice — or  care. 

THE  SHELLS 

.DACH  shell,  incrusted, 

In  the  grotto  where  we  knew  love, 

Has  its  peculiarity. 

One  has  the  purple  of  our  souls 
Robbed  from  the  blood  of  our  hearts, 
When  I  burn  and  you  take  fire. 

Another  affects  your  languors 
And  your  pallors  when,  wearily, 
You  turn  from  my  half-mocking  eyes. 

This  one  counterfeits  the  grace 

Of  your  ear,  and  that  one 

Your  neck — pink,  short,  and  plump. 

But  one  amongst  them  troubles  me. 


7 6  Paul  Ferlaine 


SKATING 


Y. 


ES,  we  were  dupes,  both  you  and  I, 
To  have  our  intrigues  for  our  pains. 
Madame,  such  frenzy,  by  the  by, 
Was  Summer  mounting  to  our  brains. 

Spring  had,  however,  I  would  say, 
Served,  if  my  memory  be  not  slack, 
To  mystify  our  little  play, 
But  in  a  fashion  not  so  black! 

For  in  the  Spring  the  air  is  fresh, 
And  then  the  budding  rose  is  sent; 
And  Love  half  opens  to  enmesh 
With  odors  almost  innocent. 

In  Spring  the  lilies,  too,  have  thrown 
Their  pungent  breath  upon  the  morn; 
And  in  the  ardent  sun  is  blown 
This  fresh  excitant,  newly  born. 

And  then  the  mocking  zephyrs  bear 

A  heady  strange  effluvium, 

That  frees  the  heart  from  thoughts  of  care 

And  makes  the  anxious  spirit  numb. 

That  stirs  to  joy  the  senses  five, 
Transports  us  to  the  very  skies ; 
All  which  alone  does  not  contrive 
To  render  us  a  bit  more  wise. 

This  was  a  time  with  skies  all  clear, 
(Madame,  do  you  recall  those  hours?) 


Fetes  Gallant  77 

The  kisses  given  light  as  air 

From  souls  as  fresh  as  were  the  flowers. 

Exempt  from  passion's  foolish  spell, 
Unmoved  by  any  transports  vain, 
How  we  enjoyed  our  days  full  well, 
Our  souls  untroubled — without  pain  1 

Ah,  happy  moments !  Summer  comes, — 
Adieu,  ye  calm  refreshing  airs ! 
A  heavy  wind,  voluptuous, 
Invests  our  being,  unawares. 

And  from  each  crimson  cup  the  flowers 
Ripe  odors  on  us  seem  to  shed; 
While  evil  counsels  fall  in  showers 
Upon  us  from  the  boughs  o'erhead. 

And  we  acceded,  this  we  know, 

And  played  the  comedy  unfeigned; 

This  sort  of  foolish  vertigo 

That  lasted  while  the  dog  star  reigned. 

Vain  laughter — tears  without  a  cause, 
Yet  with  some  pressing  need  how  fraught  I 
Half-sadness — swooning  without  pause. 
And  what  vague  longing  in  the  thought! 

Autumn  quite  happily  came  by 
With  his  cold  days  and  breezes  rude, 
And  in  his  manner  brief  and  dry 
Corrected  our  bad  habitude. 

And  caused  us,  brusquely,  too,  I  vow, 
Each  to  assume  a  rule  approved; 
The  guileless  lover,  I,  and  thou 
The  ever  worthy  well  beloved.  .  . 


78  Paul  Verlame 

Now  Madame,  Winter's  here,  and  numb. 
Each  bettor  trembles  for  his  purse. 
While  here  are  other  sleighs  that  come 
And  dare  dispute  with  us  the  course. 

Your  two  hands  in  the  muff  you've  on, 
Sit  firm  and  safely  in  your  place. 
Away  we  go !  and  soon  Fanchon 
Will  crown  us  victors  in  the  race. 


FANTASTICS 

OCARAMOUCHE  and  Pulcinella, 

Met,  by  evil  circumstance, 

Gesticulate,  their  shadows  on  the  moon. 

However,  the  excellent  doctor 
Of  Bologna  gathers  leisurely 
Simples  among  brown  herbs. 

While  his  daughter,  piquant  beauty, 
Under  the  elm  boughs  stealthily 
Glides,  half-nude,  in  quest 

Of  her  beautiful  pirate  of  Spain, 
For  whom  the  languorous  nightingale 
Proclaims  the  passion  with  head-splitting  strain. 


A 


CYTHERE 


LIGHT  pavilion  lends 
Shelter  where  our  gladness  blends, 
Fanned  by  the  rose-trees,  friends. 


Fetes  Gallant  79 

Odors  of  roses  faint,  wander — 
Thanks  to  the  summer  wind  astir, — 
And  mix  with  perfume  come  from  her. 

As  her  eyes  foretold 

Her  heart  is  warm  and  her  lips  o'erbold 

Bestow  exquisite  fevers,  that  tney  hold. 

And  Love  crowns  all  complete 
Save  hunger,  sherbet  and  sweet 
Keeping  the  body's  curves  replete. 


AFLOAT 

JL  HE  star  of  the  shepherd  trembles 
In  the  black  water,  and  the  pilot 
Searches  the  tinder  box  in  his  pockets. 

This  is  the  moment,  Gentlemen,  or  never, 

To  be  audacious,  and  I  put 

My  two  hands  everywhere,  henceforth. 

The  chevalier  Atys,  who  scrapes 
His  guitar,  to  the  ungrateful  Chloris 
Throws  a  saucy  wink. 

The  abbe  confesses  in  a  low  tone  Egle. 
And  the  viscount  grows  disorderly, 
Giving  the  key  of  his  heart  to  everyone. 

However,  the  moon  has  arisen, 

And  the  skiff  in  its  brief  course 

Glides  gayly  o'er  the  waters  that  dream. 


8o  Paul  Verlaine 


THE  FAUN 

ancient  faun  of  terra-cotta  built 
Laughs  in  the  center  of  a  plot  of  green, 
Presaging  without  doubt  some  ill  result 
Of  those  dear  moments  of  our  life  serene 

That  led  me  on  and  led  you  on,  you  old 
Sad  pilgrims  with  the  melancholy  mien, 
Unto  this  hour  whose  flying  footsteps  bold 
Go  swirling  to  the  sounding  tambourine. 


MANDOLINE 

JL  HE  singers  of  serenades, 
And  the  beauties  who  listen, 
Exchange  the  usual  banter 
Under  the  boughs  that  glisten. 

This  is  Tircis  and  this  Aminta, 
This  the  eternal  Clitander, 
This  is  Damis  that  for  many 
A  cruel  one  has  made  verses  tender. 

Their  short  vests  of  silk, 
Their  robes  with  glittering  train, 
Their  elegance,  their  joy, 
And  their  blue  shadows,  wane 

In  the  ecstatic  whirlwind 
Of  a  moon  pink  and  gray, 
And  the  mandoline  tinkling, 
With  the  breezes  at  play. 


Fetes  Gallant  81 


TO  CLYMENE 


M 


LYSTIC  barcarolles, 
Romances  without  words, 
Dear,  since  thine  eyes 
Color  of  skies, 

Since  thy  voice,  strange 
Visions  that  derange 
And  trouble  the  horizon 
Of  my  reason, 

Since  the  aroma  famed 
Of  thy  pallor  of  the  swan, 
And  since  the  candor 
Of  thine   odor, — 

Ah,  since  all  thy  being, 
Music  that  penetrates, 
Halos  from  angels'  tombs, 
Tones  and  perfumes, 

Have  on  rich  cadences 
Of  its  correspondences 
Induced  my  heart  subtly, — 
So  let  it  be ! 


LETTER 

ITHDRAW  your  eyes,  Madame,  for  by  the  cares 
Imperious  (I  take  all  the  gods  to  witness) 
I  languish  and  I  die,  as  is  my  custom 
In  like  cases.    And  true,  my  heart  is  bitter, 
Across  the  unrest  your  shadow  brings, 


82  Paul  Verlaine 

Daily  in  my  thoughts,  in  my  dreams  at  night, 
And,  by  night  and  by  day,  adorable,  Madame  I 
Ah  well,  at  last  my  body  disappears, 
And  in  its  place  my  soul  becomes  a  shade 
That  in  its  turn,  amid  emotions  sad, 
Embraces  vain  and  numberless  desires, 
Is  lost  within  your  shadow  for  all  time. 

Till  then,  consider  me  your  slave,  my  dear. 

Madame,  do  all  behave  themselves  with  you? 

Your  parrot,  cat,  and  dog?    The  society 

Is  it  always  pleasant,  and  this  Silvanie 

Whose  black  eye  I  had  loved  were  yours  not  blue, 

And  who,  sometimes,  would  make  me  signs,  parbleu! 

Is  she  the  trusty  friend  she  was  of  old? 

Madame,  an  impatient  project  haunts  me. 

This  is  to  conquer  the  whole  earth  with  all 

Its  treasures  rare,  to  put  them  at  your  feet — 

Unworthy  gage — to  prove  my  love  the  peer 

Of  those  most  high  and  celebrated  flames 

Whose  ardent  hearts  have  lighted  up  the  past ! 

Less  loved  was  Cleopatra,  by  my  faith, 

Of  Antony  and  Caesar,  than  you  by  me ! 

Do  not  doubt  it,  Madame.    I  would  have  fought 

Like  Caesar  for  a  smile,  O  Cleopatra ! 

Like  Antony,  staked  all  upon  a  kiss. 

Dear  friend,  adieu.    Already  too  much  talk. 
One  reads  a  letter  in  so  short  a  space 
It  almost  seems  a  waste  of  time  to  write. 


Fetes  Gallant  83 


INDOLENTS 


B 


AH !    In  spite  of  zealous  destiny 
Let's  die  together — shall  we?    You  and  I. 
— The  proposition's  rare. 

— The  rare  is  good.    Let's  die,  my  own, 

Like  those  in  the  Decameron  1 

— Ha !  Ha !    What  lover !    How  bizarre ! 

— Bizarre,  I  do  not  know !    But  lover 
Without  guile,  assuredly !    Let's  have  it  over- 
Dying,  if  you  wish — together ! 

— Sir,  indeed  you're  far  too  bold, 

And  then  you  do  not  love,  but  talk  of  gold. 

Let's  just  be  still — if  you  would  rather. 

But  Tircis  and  his  Dorimene, 
This  evening  sitting  on  the  green 
Near  by  a  laughing  rustic  pair, 

Made  this  unpardonable  mistake 

Of  hindering  death  for  love's  dear  sake. 

Ha!  Ha!    What  lovers!    How  bizarre! 


COLUMBINE 

JL/EANDER,  the  fop, 
Pierrot  with  a  hop 

That  would, 
Flea-like,  clear  a  bush; 
Cassandra  'neath  her  plush 

Drawn  hood; 


84  Paul  Verlaine 

And  then  Harlequin, 
Rascal  with  a  grin 

Grotesque, 

Costumed  like  a  fool, 
With  glowing  eyes  that  rule 

His  masque; 

— Do,  mi,  sol,  fa,  mi, — 
All  these  people  flee, 

Or  worse; 

Laugh  and  dance  as  well, 
Before  a  saucy  belle 

Perverse, 

Whose  eyes  malign 
Like  a  cat's  eyes  shine, 

Guarding  the  while 
Her  charms  and  crying  "Down" — 
"Paws  down!"  with  a  frown 

And  smile. 

— These,  they  go  perforce, 
Sad,  insipid  course 

Of  stars. 

Oh!    Tell  me  toward 
What  fell,  untoward 

Disasters 

The  implacable  child 
Leads  her  beguiled 

Young  troupes? 
With  lifted  skirt  in  hand, 
Ah,  whither  with  her  band 

Of  dupes? 


Fetes  Gallant  85 


THE  FALLEN  CUPID 

HE  wind  the  other  night  o'erturned  the  little  Love 
That,  in  the  most  mysterious  corner  of  the  park, 
Mischievously  bent  his  bow  in  the  shadows  dark 
Where  we  two  dreamed,  while  Love  watched  from 
above. 

The  wind  the  other  night  had  thrown  it  low ! 

The  marble  broke  and  scattered.  Ah,  what  shame 
To  see  the  pedestal  and  read  the  artist's  name 

Painfully,  where  trees  their  shadows  throw. 

Oh!  it  is  sad  to  see  this  pedestal  of  stone 
Standing  so  solitary,  and  in  my  dream 
The  melancholy  thoughts  that  go  and  come,  seem 

To  evoke  a  fatal  future,  drear  and  lone. 

Oh !  it  is  sad,  but  you,  why  are  you  gay, 

Viewing  this  doleful  sight  with  frivolous  eye? 
Amused  to  watch  the  purple  butterfly 

Above  the  ruin  that  obstructs  the  way. 


SOURDINE 

V^/ALM  in  the  half-day 
Where  deep  branches  abound, 
Let  us  mingle  our  love 
With  silence  profound. 

Let  us  melt  our  two  souls 
In  ecstasy  fine 
With  the  vague  languors 
Of  shrub  and  of  pine. 


86  Paul  Verlaine 

Half  close  your  eyes, 
Cross  your  arms  on  your  breast, 
With  the  heart  sleeping, 
Peacefully  rest. 

Welcome  the  breathing  wind 
That  is  rippling  so  sweet 
The  waves  of  red  grasses 
That  move  at  your  feet. 

And,  when  the  dim  twilight 
Solemnly  falls, 
Voice  of  our  sorrow 
The  nightingale  calls. 


I 


COLLOQUY  SENTIMENTAL 


N  the  old  park  solitary  and  cold 
They  pass — two  forms  that  loved  of  old. 

Their  eyes  are  dead  and  their  lips  are  dumb, 
If  they  speak,  none  hears  the  words  that  come. 

In  the  old  park  solitary  and  vast 
Two  specters  have  evoked  the  past. 

— Do  you  remember  our  old  love? — Yet, 
Why  wish  me  to  recall  it?  I  forget. 

— Your  heart  beats  only  to  my  name?  this  would  I 

know. 
And  do  you  see  my  soul  in  dreams? — No ! 

— Ah,  the  good  days — the  joy  unspeakable — 
When  our  young  lips  were  met. — It's  possible. 


Fetes  Gallant  87 

— Oh,  they  were  blue,  the  heavens,  and  hope  was  high ! 
— Now  hope  has  vanished,  toward  the  blackened  sky. 

Thus  through  the  tangled  weeds  they  walk, 
And  save  the  night  alone,  none  hears  them  talk. 


THE  GOOD  SONG 
(LA  BONNE  CHANSON) 


T, 


HE  morning  sun  makes  warm  and  golden,  too, 
The  wheat  and  rye  still  wet  with  early  dew. 
The  heavens  keep  their  freshness  of  the  night. 
One  wanders  out,  no  other  task  in  sight, 
Save  by  the  river's  tossing  sedge  of  gold 
To  trace  a  grassy  path  'neath  alders  old. 
The  air  is  fresh.    A  bird  goes  flitting  by, 
Some  hedge-fruit  in  its  beak  or  wisp  of  rye. 
And  in  the  stream  its  shadow  follows  fast. 
Naught  else. 

The  dreamer  loves  this  landscape  vast, 
For  the  soft  light  has  suddenly  caressed 
His  dream  of  happiness  and  blessed 
The  charming  memories  a  maiden  brings; 
Vision  in  white  that  scintillates  and  sings. 
And  what  he  dreams  perhaps  would  make  one  smile- 
The  sweet  Companion  he  has  found  at  last, 
Whose  soul  his  soul  weeps  for  as  days  go  past. 


A 


II 


.LL  grace  and  all  light, 
In  the  flush  of  her  sixteen  years, 
She  has  the  innocence  bright 
Of  a  child  without  fears. 

Her  eyes  are  full  of  youthful  fire, 
Innocent  yet  wise,  that  nothing  miss; 
Awakening  the  strange  desire 
Of  an  immaterial  kiss. 


92  Paul  Verlaine 

Her  hand,  so  little  and  so  light, 
A  humming  bird  within  it  could  not  hide, 
Captures,  without  hope  of  flight, 
The  heart  in  secret,  short  of  pride. 

She  is  intelligent  as  well ; 

And  with  a  noble  soul  to  meet  all  need. 

As  pure  as  she  is  spiritual. 

And  what  she  says  'twere  well  to  heed. 

If  sometimes  foolish  jokes  amuse, 
And  make  her  laugh  with  heartless  glee ; 
Yet  will  she  be — herself  a  Muse — 
Forgiving  to  the  point  of  amity; 

Even  to  the  point  of  love — who  knows?    Maybe, 
Out  of  regard  for  a  poor  bard  with  pleading  eyes, 
Who  begs,  beneath  her  window,  as  you  see — 
Audacious  one ! — a  worthy  prize 

Indeed,  of  his  song  good  or  bad! 
Yet,  proof  sincere,  whose  every  look  reveals 
Without  false  shame  or  heart  unduly  sad, 
The  sweet  discomfort  that  a  lover  feels. 


Ill 


I 


N  her  ruche-bordered  dress  of  green  and  gray, 
One  day  in  June  when  I  was  full  of  care, 
She  came  before  my  eyes,  quick  smiling,  fair, — 
I  who  admired,  nor  feared  her  ambush  gay. 

She  came  and  went,  returned  a  while,  and  spoke — 
Delicate  and  grave,  ironical  and  tender; 
And  on  my  soul  so  full  of  visions  somber, 
A  ray  from  her  all  joyous  presence  broke. 


The  Good  Song  93 

Her  voice  that  was  so  musical  and  low, 
Went  hand  in  hand  with  her  sweet  spirit,  bold 
Yet  guileless,  when  her  charming  babble  told 
A  heart  as  gay  as  good,  one  might  well  know. 

And  thus  was  I — though  I  would  fain  dissemble 
With  a  revolt,  put  instantly  away — 
In  this  small  Fairy's  power,  who  since  that  day 
I  supplicate  in  fear  and  even — tremble ! 


IV 


dawn  awoke  and  sunrise  now  is  here, 
Since  having  flown  so  long  hope  turns  at  last 
And  flies  toward  me  who  called  through  all  the  year; 
Since  all  this  joy  is  mine,  and  sorrow  past,  — 

O  let  me  now  forget  the  bitter  thought, 
The  evil  dreams,  be  they  forever  gone. 

The  irony  my  scornful  lips  had  caught, 
The  cruel  words  my  spirit  dwelt  upon. 

Away  with  fist  tight-clenched  and  anger's  sway 

That  rose  against  the  fools  we  daily  pass; 
Away  with  spite  abominable  —  away 

Forgetfulness  found  in  the  fateful  glass! 

• 
For  'tis  my  wish  —  now  that  a  Soul  of  light 

Has  in  my  night  profound  thrown  its  soft  rays 
Of  early  love,  immortal  as  'tis  bright, 

By  favor  of  her  smiles  and  graceful  ways,  — 

It  is  my  wish,  such  light  her  fair  eye  hath, 
But  to  be  led  by  her,  what  e'er  forebodes  ; 

To  walk  upright  along  the  mossy  path 

When  rocks  and  gravel  strew  the  beaten  roads. 


94  Paul  Verlaine 

I  wish  to  walk  straightforward  now  through  Life, 
My  task  in  view,  nor  stepping  once  aside; 

Without  remorse  or  envy,  without  strife, 

Nor  fearing  aught,  with  Her  close  at  my  side. 

And  I  will  sing  my  songs  along  the  route — 
To  shorten  the  rough  road  they  will  suffice. 

She,  too,  will  listen,  pleased  without  a  doubt, 
And  truly  this  will  be  my  Paradise. 


B 


EFORE  thou  takest  flight,  pale 
Star  of  dawn  sublime, 

— A  thousand  quail 
Singing,  singing  in  the  thyme. 

Turn  toward  the  poet,  mark 
His  eyes  how  full  of  love; 

— The  lark 
Mounts  to  the  sky  above. 

Turn,  thy  loving  glance  employ, 
It  drowns  the  dawn  in  blue ; 

— What  joy 
Amidst  the  ripe  wheat  wet  with  dew! 

And  make  my  thoughts  to  shine 
Yonder,  O  far  away! 

— How  fine 
The  dew  that  glistens  on  the  hay. 

In  the  sweet  troubled  dream,  so  chaste 
Of  my  dear  sleeping  one.   .   . 

— Haste,  haste, 
For  here's  the  golden  sun. 


The  Good  Song  95 


VI 

J.  HE  white  moon 
Shines  in  the  wood; 
From  each  branch 
Comes  a  voice 
Under  the  boughs.  .  . 

O  well-beloved. 

The  pool  reflects, 

Profound  mirror, 

The  silhouette 

Of  the  black  willow 

Where  the  wind  weeps.  .  . 

Dream  on,  this  is  the  hour. 

A  vast  and  tender 
Peacefulness 
Seems  to  descend 
From  the  firmament 
That  a  star  tints.  .  . 

This  is  the  exquisite  hour. 


T 


VII 


HE  landscape  from  the  curtained  window  square 
Speeds  swiftly  past  while  all  the  wide  plains  wear, 
With  the  water,  the  wheat,  the  trees,  and  sky, 
An  aspect  strange — a  whirlpool  rushing  by; 
The  telegraph's  slim  poles  go  tilting  o'er, 
With  all  their  wires  quite  like  a  music  score. 


96  Paul  Verla'me 

A  smell  of  burning  coal  and  hissing  steam. 
A  noise  as  of  a  thousand  chains  that  seem 
To  bind  a  thousand  giants,  lashed,  that  howl; 
And  then  the  long-drawn  hooting,  like  an  owl. 

Ah,  what  to  me  all  this,  since  in  my  eyes 
And  joyous  heart  a  white-robed  vision  lies; 
Since  her  sweet  voice  for  me  resounds  once  more, 
And  since  a  Name,  well  loved,  blends  with  the  roar 
Like  a  smooth  pivot  that  might  well  reproach 
The  brutal  rumble  of  the  noisy  coach. 


VIII 


A 


SAINT  in  her  bright  halo, 
A  chatelaine  in  her  tower; 
All  that  the  human  word  may  know 
Of  grace  and  love's  sweet  power. 

The  note  of  golden  splendor 
Of  a  horn  in  woodland  ways, 
Linked  with  pride,  deep  and  tender, 
Of  queens  of  other  days. 

With  this  the  glowing  sense 
Of  triumph  when  she  smiled; 
The  blush — the  swan-like  innocence- 
Half  woman  and  half  child. 

Face  pearl  and  pink,  that  brings 
To  mind  some  fair  patrician  dame : 
I  see,  I  hear  all  these  proud  things 
In  her  Carlovingian  name. 


The  Good  Song  97 


IX 


.ER  right  arm,  in  a  gesture  amiable  and  sweet, 
Reposes  about  the  neck  of  her  little  sister, 
While  her  left  arm  follows  the  rhythm  of  her  skirt. 
Truly,  a  happy  thought  seems  to  possess  her  mind, 
For  her  eyes  so  fresh  and  her  mouth  that  smiles 
Witness  a  joy  that  mingles  with  her  spirit. 
Oh,  her  thought,  exquisite  and  fine!  what  is  it? 
How  beautiful,  how  lovable,  and  how  good! 
For  this  portrait  her  infallible  taste  has  chosen 
The  most  simple  pose,  also  the  very  best. 
Standing,  the  look  straight,  bare-headed;  and  her  dress 
Just  long  enough  in  this  that  it  discloses 
A  trifle,  'neath  its  jealous  folds,  the  charming  tip 
Of  a  foot  maliciously  imperceptible. 


X 

JL  IFTEEN  long  days  to  come  and  six  weeks  gone 

Already !    Among  human  agonies 

The  saddest  of  them  all  is  to  be  far. 

One  writes,  repeats  his  love;  or  has  a  care 

To  evoke  each  day,  gesture,  voice  and  eyes 

Of  her  on  whom  his  happiness  relies. 

To  talk  alone  with  her  in  dumb  appeals. 

But  all  one  thinks,  and  all  the  things  one  feels, 

And  all  his  words,  thus  spoken,  grave  or  glad, 

Persist  in  seeming  colorless  and  sad. 

Oh!  absence!  most  inclement  of  all  ills! 
Consoling  one's  self  with  the  phrase  that  thrills, 
And  then  to  dip  the  sad  depths  of  one's  thought 
For  comfort  and  to  find  all  there  is  naught, 
Hope-sick  to  draw  up  only  bitter  things ! 


98  Paul  Verlame 

Then,  hard  and  cold,  a  barbed  iron  that  stings, 
Swifter  than  bird  or  bullet  or  the  thin 
Sharp  south  sea  wind  tipped  with  a  fish's  fin, 
Here  comes,  like  to  an  arrow,  the  suspicion 
Shot  by  the  archer  Doubt,  the  evil  one. 

And  is  this  true?  as  touched  by  haunting  fears, 
I  read  her  letter,  my  eyes  full  of  tears. 
Her  letter,  with  the  sweet  avows  it  brings ; 
Is  she  not  then  distraught  by  other  things? 
Who  knows?  While  time  for  me,  slow  and  morose, 
Flows  like  a  stream  along  its  muddy  course, 
Perhaps  her  mouth  a  happy  smile  begets, — 
Perhaps  she  may  be  glad — perhaps — forgets? 
And  I  re-read  her  letter.  Vague  regrets ! 


XI 


HIS  hard  proof  soon  will  have  an  end, 
Smile,  O  my  heart — your  fortunes  mend. 

Now  they  are  passed,  the  days  of  fears, 
When  I  was  sad — sad  unto  tears. 

Count  not  the  moments,  O  my  soul, 
Time  yet  must  take  a  little  toll. 

The  bitter  words,  I've  killed  them  all, 
Dark  specters  banished  past  recall. 

My  eyes  like  weary  exiles  are 
That  only  see  her  from  afar; 

My  ears  are  hungry  but  to  hear 
Her  golden  voice  so  soft  and  clear; 


The  Good  Song  99 

And  all  my  being,  all  my  love, 

My  only  thought  and  dream  doth  move 

Me  to  acclaim  the  happy  day 
When  I  shall  see  my  fiancee! 


XII 

[O,  song,  on  wings  wind-blown, 
And  tell  her  with  thy  art : 
A  joyous  light  has  shown 
Within  my  faithful  heart. 

Cast  out  with  sainted  ray, 
Love's  shadows  all  have  fled; 

Within  my  heart  is  day, 

Pride,  fear,  and  doubt,  are  dead. 

Long  silent,  dumb,  and  dark, 

Hearest  thou?  The  gladness  rings 

Like  the  swift-winged  lark 
That  in  the  clear  sky  sings. 

Go  then,  my  song,  today, 

Thy  voice  she'll  not  disdain. 

Welcomed,  she'll  bid  thee  stay, 
Since  you  return  again. 


XIII 

.S  yesterday  they  talked,  our  elders  wise, 
My  eyes  kept  ever  seeking  your  dear  eyes ; 

And  your  soft  glance  was  often  toward  me  thrown 
The  while  the  stupid  talk  flowed  gravely  on. 


ioo  Paul  Verlaine 

Beneath  the  banal  sense  of  phrases  caught, 
My  errant  love  kept  ever  near  your  thought; 

And  when  you  spoke,  as  though  without  design, 
My  quick  ear  caught  your  secret — that  was  mine. 

For  the  voice,  like  the  eyes  of  This  that  makes 
You  sad  or  joyous,  a  dear  secret  takes 

And,  spite  of  every  effort  you  essay, 
Gives  your  emotions  to  the  light  of  day. 

Now,  yesterday  I  parted,  drunken  quite: 
Is  this  a  vain  hope  that  my  heart  holds  tight, 

A  vain  hope,  false  and  sweet — fain  would  I  know? 
Nay,  nay,  it  is  not  so — it  is  not  so ! 


T, 


XIV 


HE  fireside  and  the  lamplight's  level  ray, 
Dreaming,  hand  raised  to  brow  at  close  of  day; 
Eyes  that  in  eyes  beloved  their  image  see ; 
Hour  when  the  books  are  closed  and  steams  the  tea. 
Sweetness  to  feel,  at  last  the  evening  o'er, 
The  charmed  fatigue  and  waiting  we  adore 
Of  nuptial  shadows  and  of  the  sweet  night. 
Oh!  All  these  joys  my  tender  dreams  invite 
Without  release,  though  vain  delay  bespeaks, 
Mad  of  the  months  and  furious  of  the  weeks. 


The  Good  Song  101 


XV 


A. 


.LMOST  I  fear,  if  truth  be  said, 
So  much  my  life  becomes  enlaced 
With  that  all  radiant  thought  that  graced 
My  soul,  the  summer  that  has  fled; 

So  fast  your  image,  dear,  I  own, 
Lives  in  this  heart  that's  all  for  you; 
My  heart  uniquely  jealous,  too, 
To  love  and  please  but  you  alone. 

Grant  me  your  pardon,  if  in  awe, 
I  frankly  speak  as  though  you  heard, 
To  think  that  but  a  smile — a  word 
From  you  henceforth  must  be  my  law; 

That  it  sufficeth  but  a  sign, 
A  word,  a  trembling  of  an  eye, 
To  put  my  joy  forever  by, 
Take  my  illusions  so  divine. 

And  still  I  would  not  see  thee,  thence — 
The  future  is  too  somber  hued, 
With  pains  all  numberless  imbued, 
Yet,  ever  through  a  hope  immense, 

Plunged  in  a  joy  supremely  due, 
I  say  again  and  always  say, 
In  spite  of  every  mournful  way: 
That  I  love  you — that  I  love  you! 


IO2  Paul  Verlaine 


T, 


XVI 


HE  noise  of  taverns  and  the  black  mud  of  the 

sidewalks, 

The  torn  leaves  fluttering  in  the  wintry  air; 
The  omnibus,  a  storm  of  rusty  iron  and  mud 
That  creaks,  unpleasantly,  on  its  four  grinding  wheels 
And  rolls  its  slowly  burning  eyes  of  green  and  red; 
The  workmen  going  to  their  clubs  and  smoking  each 
His  short  clay  pipe  'neath  the  very  nose  of  the  police; 
The  dripping  roofs,  the  sweating  walls,  the  slippery 

walks, 

The  asphalt  bulging  and  the  filthy,  muddy  rills ; 
Such  is  my  route — and  at  the  end  is  paradise. 


XVII 

J.S  it  not  so?    Despite  what  others  say, 
Who  merely  envy  us  our  present  joys, 
We  two  will  go  with  humble  pride  our  way. 

Is  it  not  so?    We  take  the  modest  path, 
Happy  and  slow,  that  smiling  Hope  employs, 
Unmindful  of  the  ways  the  cold  world  hath. 

Lost  in  our  love,  as  in  some  leafy  dell, 
Our  hearts  will  be  in  their  deep  tenderness 
Two  nightingales  that  sing  the  day  farewell. 

As  for  the  World,  though  it  be  fair  or  dark, 
What  matters  it?    Perhaps  it  may  caress, 
Perhaps  in  harming  take  us  for  the  mark. 


The  Good  Song  103 

And  thus  united  by  the  ties  most  dear, 

Clad  in  an  armor  that  can  all  withstand, 

We  two  shall  smile  and,  smiling,  nothing  fear. 

Unmindful  save  of  what  the  Fates  bestow, 
We  two  shall  walk  our  pathway  hand  in  hand, 
With  that  high  hope  and  youthful  soul  aglow 

Of  those  who  truly  love — is  it  not  so  ? 

XVIII 

JL  HESE  stormy  times  serve  to  remind 
That  marriage  of  the  souls  should  bind 
Our  hearts  in  happy  unison. 
And  in  this  hour  of  sad  unrest 
'Twill  put  our  courage  to  the  test 
To  bear  life's  burdens  one  by  one. 

And,  facing  this,  'twere  well  we  two 
Strive  but  to  keep  this  thought  in  view: 
To  hold  ourselves,  thrice  happy  pair, 
In  ways  upright,  conduct  austere, 
So  that  our  love  shall  always  wear 
A  proud  and  a  defiant  air. 

Why  should  I  speak  of  this  meanwhile? 
O  thou  the  goodness — thou  the  smile! 
Hast  thou  not  counsel,  too,  that  ranks 

O'er  mine — most  loyal,  strong  and  brave? 

Whose  laughter  mocks  my  visage  grave, 
And  still  to  whom  my  heart  cries :  Thanks  1 


IO4  Paul  Verlame 


XIX 

,  it  shall  be  a  day  of  summer,  dear, 
The  glowing  sun,  accomplice  of  my  joy, 
His  rays,  'mid  silks  and  satin,  will  employ 
To  make  your  beauty  still  more  rare,  more  clear. 

The  far  blue  sky  outspread  like  some  high  tent, 
Shall  tremble  sumptuously  in  lengthening  folds 
Above  our  happy  brows  whose  pallor  holds 
Expectancy,  with  joy  and  gladness  blent. 

And  when  the  evening  comes  with  its  sweet  air 
That  loves  to  play,  caressing,  in  your  veils, 
The  peaceful  stars  that  rise  above  the  dales 
Will  smile  upon  the  happy  wedded  pair. 


XX 


I 


WENT  by  paths  where  danger  hides, 
Uncertain  windings,  far  withdrawn; 
But  your  dear  hands  were  my  sole  guides. 

If  o'er  the  eastern  sky  was  drawn 
One  feeble  glow  of  coming  day, 
Your  glance  made  morning  of  the  dawn. 

No  noise  to  cheer  the  traveler's  way, 

Save  his  slow  footsteps,  sounding  far. 
Your  voice  said:  "Courage — and  away." 

My  fearful  heart  no  longer  gay 
Wept  with  me  on  the  road,  alas ! 
But  love,  delicious  vanquisher, 

Our  joyful  meeting  brought  to  pass. 


The  Good  Song  105 


XXI 

INTER  has  gone :  the  balmy  light  indeed 
Dances,  from  earth  unto  the  heavens  clear. 
Oh !  well  may  the  heart  the  most  sad  accede 
To  the  immense  joy  scattered  in  the  air. 

Even  this  Paris  wearisome  and  ill, 

Seems  to  acclaim  the  young  suns  that  unfold, 
And  with  a  mighty  welcome's  joyous  thrill 

Extends  a  thousand  arms  from  roofs  of  gold. 

I've  had,  a  year,  the  springtime  in  my  soul, 
This  green  return  of  flowers  so  sweet  to  feel, 

As  though  a  flame  about  a  flame  might  roll, 
Has  put  for  me  ideal  on  ideal. 

The  blue  sky  is  more  vast  and  high,  and  crowns 
The  air  immutable  where  laughs  my  love; 

How  all  is  fair  and  how  my  path  abounds 

With  hopes  that  have  their  turn — hopes  born  above. 

Let  summer  come,  and  autumn  that  awaits 
Winter's  return!  Each  season  in  its  way 

Will  charming  be,  O  Thou  who  decorates 
The  fantasy  and  motive  of  this  lay! 


ROMANCES  WITHOUT  WORDS 
(ROMANCES  SANS  PAROLES) 


I 


FORGOTTEN  AIRS 
I 

Le  vent  dans  la  plaine 
Suspend  son  haleine. 

(Favart.) 

T 

J.  HIS  is  the  languorous  ecstasy, 
This  is  the  amorous  fatigue, 

This  is  the  wood  that  rejoices, 
When,  in  the  hush  of  the  breeze 
Sings  from  the  trembling  trees 

The  choir  of  little  voices. 

O  the  frail  and  fresh  murmur, 
This  warble  growing  firmer, 

This  resembles  the  sweet  cry 
Of  the  wind-shaken  grass, 
Or,  under  the  waters  that  pass, 

The  slow  turning  pebbles'  low  sigh. 

And  this  soul  that  laments 

Plaintive — intense, 
Is  this  not  ours,  filled  with  care? 

Is  this  not  mine,  say,  and  thine, 

This  sad  anthem  divine, 
Humble  and  low  on  the  air? 


II 


VAGUELY  guess,  across  a  murmur  drawn, 
The  sound  of  voices,  long  since  still,  alas ! 
And  in  this  glimmer,  fair  musicians  pass, 
And  love,  the  symbol  of  a  future  dawn. 

[109] 


no  Paul  Ferlaine 

And  soul  and  heart,  that  blend  in  mad  desire, 
Seem  like  an  eye  that  has  a  vision  double, 
Where  trembles,  on  a  weary  day  of  trouble, 
The  haunting  tune  of  every  poet's  lyre. 

O  death — this  death  that  must  alone  endure, 
This  love  that  goes  in  fear  that  once  was  ours. 
The  young  hours  balancing  with  the  old  hours, 
And  dying,  gently  swinging,  slow  and  sure ! 


Ill 


I 


II  pleut  doucement  sur  la  mile. 
(Arthur  Rimbaud.) 


_T  weeps  in  my  heart 
As  it  rains  on  the  town. 
What  is  this  languor 
That  weighs  my  heart  down? 

Soft  drip  of  the  rain 
On  the  roofs  and  the  ground, 
For  a  heart  that  is  weary 
O  sweet  is  the  sound! 

It  weeps  without  right 
And  heart-sick  is  my  song. 
What!  Is  there  no  treason? 
This  sorrow  is  wrong! 

And,  knowing  not  why, 
It  is  well  the  worst  pain, 
Without  love  or  hate 
That  my  heart  has  such  pain. 


Romances  Without  Words  ill 


Son  joyeux,  importun,  d'un  clavecin 
sonore.  (Petrus  Borel.) 

J.  HE  piano,  kissed  by  a  hand  soft  and  frail, 
Shines  vaguely  in  the  twilight  pink  and  gray. 

Whilst  lightly  as  a  bird's  wing,  in  a  dale, 
An  old  tune,  very  feeble,  sweet  and  gay, 

Circles  discretely,  ere  its  faint  notes  fail, 

The  room  perfumed  by  Her  since  that  far  day. 

What  is  this  sudden  rocking  in  my  heart — 
This  stirring  of  my  inmost  soul  profound? 

What  wouldst  thou  of  me?  ghostly  song  thou  art! 
What  is  thy  wish,  thou  sweet  uncertain  sound, 

That,  dying,  seeks  the  window  to  depart — 
The  garden  window,  open  near  the  ground? 


VI 


B 


EHOLD  the  dog  of  Jean  Nivelle 
That  snaps  beneath  the  sentry's  eye 
The  cat  of  the  good  dame  Michel — 
Franc.ois-les-bas-bleus  laughs  to  cry. 

While  for  the  public  scribe's  concern, 
The  moon  her  misty  light  lets  fall, 

Where  Angelique  with  Medor  turn 
To  deepest  green  on  their  old  wall. 

Here  comes  La  Ramee,  a  bold  knight, 
Who  swears  as  a  King's  soldier  will. 

Beneath  his  coat,  ill-famed  and  white, 
His  heart  no  joy  could  ever  fill 


112  Paul  Verlaine 

Because  the  bakeress  .  .  .  — She  ?    For  shame ! 

Bernant  Lustucru,  her  old  man, 
Has  often  crowned,  betimes,  her  flame  .  .  . 

Children,  Dominus  vobiscum! 

Hold !  In  her  long  robe  all  in  blue, 

That  makes  frou-frou  in  satin  clear, 
This  is  a  courtesan — parbleu! 

'Twere  well  that  you  should  praise  her  chair. 

Be  he  philosopher  or  knave, 

This  gold  in  heaps  doth  make  one  cross; 
Such  riches,  insolent,  might  pave 

The  world  with  notes  by  Monsieur  Loss ! 

Stop,  you  rascal,  hold  your  place,  you 

Little  shopman,  little  abbe,  gay; 
Little  bard  who  ever  tries  to  woo  • 

The  rhyme  that  always  goes  astray! 

However,  here's  the  night  at  hand  .  .  . 

And  never  weary  all  the  day 
With  being  innocent  and  bland, 

Frangois-les-bas-blues  still  is  gay. 


VII 


H 


.OW  sad — how  sad  my  heart  today, 
Because  of  One  so  far  away. 

For  me,  no  balm  can  e'er  console, 
Who  made  an  exile  of  my  soul. 

For  me  whose  soul,  for  me  whose  heart, 
Willed  we  should  ever  live  apart. 


Romances  Without  Words  113 

For  me,  no  balm  can  e'er  console, 
Who  made  an  exile  of  my  soul. 

My  heart  so  sensitive,  so  miserable, 
Said  to  my  soul:     Can  it  be  possible? 

Is't  possible — said  it,  the  while — 
This  proud  exile,  this  sad  exile  ? 

My  soul  said  to  my  heart:  Know  I, 
Myself,  whence  comes  this  snare,  or  why; 

To  be  with  her,  yet  an  exile, 

And  long,  long  gone  from  her  the  while  ? 


VIII 

J.N  the  interminable 
Weariness  of  the  land 
The  uncertain  snow 
Shines  like  the  sand. 

The  sky  is  of  copper, 
Its  light  is  a  swoon, 
I  seem  to  see  living 
And  dying  the  moon. 

Like  floating  gray  clouds 
In  the  wood  lying  near, 
The  mist-shrouded  oaks 
Of  the  forest  appear. 


The  sky  is  of  copper, 
Its  light  is  a  swoon, 
I  seem  to  see  living 
And  dying  the  moon. 


H4  Paul  Verldine 

You  broken-voiced  crow, 
You  meager  wolves,  too, 
In  the  bitter  north  wind 
What  will  happen  to  you? 

In  the  interminable 
Weariness  of  the  land 
The  uncertain  snow 
Shines  like  the  sand. 


IX 

The  nightingale  from  the  height  of 
a  branch,  looking  down,  thinks  to 
have  fallen  in  the  river.  He  is  at  the 
summit  of  an  oak,  yet  hath  he  fear  of 
drowning. 

(Cyrano  de  Bergerac.) 

A  HE  shadow  of  trees  in  the  vaporous  stream,  fog- 
kissed, 

Fading,  dies  like  the  mist; 

Whilst  in  the  shady  depths  of  the  real  branches,  above, 
Mourns  and  complains  the  dove. 

How  in  this  landscape  vague,  O  traveler  pale, 

Thou  too  art  mirrored,  frail; 
Whilst  in  the  highest  leaves,  with  mournful  sound, 

Sadly  thy  hopes  are  drowned! 


Romances  Without  Words  115 


BELGIAN  LANDSCAPES 

"Conquestes  du  Roy" 
(Vieilles  estampes). 

WALCOURT 

Vy  THE  charming 

Bricks  and  tiles  1 
For  the  lovers, 

Little  aisles. 

Hops  and  vines, 

Leaves  and  flowers. 
For  frank  drinkers, 

Shady  bowers. 

Beer  and  clamors, 

Taverns  clear; 
To  all  smokers 

Servants  dear. 

Gay  highroads 

And  stations  near. 
Good  wandering  Jews, 

What  cheer,  what  cheer! 


CHARLEROI 


I 


N  the  black  grass 
The  Kobolds  go. 
The  wind  profound 
Must  weep,  I  know. 


n6  Paul  Verlaine 

What  is  this  scent? 
The  oats  whistle, 
And  bush  and  thistle 
Strike  those  who  pass. 

More  hovels  than 
Fine  homes,  'tis  said. 
What  horizons 
Of  forges  red! 

What  does  one  smell? 
The  depots  thunder, 
The  eyes  wonder, 
Where's  Charleroi? 

Sinister  odors ! 
Ah,  what  is  this, 
Like  a  sistrum's 

Noisy  kiss? 

Hold  your  breath! 
Now  all  is  brutal! 
The  sweat  of  men — 
The  cries  of  metal! 

In  the  black  grass 
The  Kobolds  go. 
The  wind  profound 
Must  weep,   I  know. 


Romances  Without  Words  117 

BRUSSELS 

SIMPLE  FRESCOS 


T. 


HE  flight  is  verdant  and  pink 
Of  the  fences  and  hills; 
In  the  twilight  the  lamp  fills 
Our  coach  with  a  blur  indistinct. 

A  light  in  the  valley  still  clings, 
Sweetly  gilding  the  copse; 
Some  little  shrubs  without  tops 
Where  a  feeble  bird  sings. 

Sad,  in  a  mild  way,  the  burning 
Touch  of  Autumn  there; 
And  my  old  languors,  returning, 
Are  cradled  on  the  air. 


II 

T 

±.  HE  pathway  runs  on  without  end 
Yonder  where  the  heavens  blend 

Over  this  sweet  glade. 
Do  you  know  that  it  would  be 
Good  to  lie  beneath  this  tree 

In  the  secret  shade? 

Some  gentlemen  in  careful  dress — 
Who  they  are  one  well  might  guess, 
Friends  without  a  doubt 


n8  Paul  Ferlaine 

Of  the  Royer-Collards — go 
On  their  way  toward  the  chateau. 
Would  it  were  my  route ! 

The  old  chateau  is  all  in  white, 
With,  at  its  side,  the  somber  light 

Of  the  setting  sun. 
Fields  around.  .  .    Here  all  is  blest, 
Oh !  that  here  our  love  could  nest 

When  our  day  is  done. 

Cafe  of  the  Young  Fox, 

August,   1872. 


HORSES  OF  WOOD 

Par  Saint-Gille, 
Viens-nous-ent 
Mon  agile 
Alezan. 

(V.  Hugo.) 

URN,  turn,  wooden  horses,  turn. 
Turn  a  hundred  times — a  thousand  times — 
The  hautboy  sounds,  the  music  chimes — 
Turn,  turn,  wooden  horses,  turn! 

The  nurses  fat — the  soldiers  gay — 
Go  whirling  round  with  happy  smile; 
In  Cambre's  wood  this  is  the  style : 
Two  masters  for  each  prancing  bay. 

Turn,  horses  of  their  heart,  turn  round; 
For  here  the  watching  sharper  stands 
With  twinkling  eye  and  cunning  hands; 
Turn  to  the  piston's  boastful  sound. 


Romances  Without  Words  119 

It  makes  one  tipsy  thus  to  spin 
On  horses  with  such  crazy  tread; 
Upsets  your  stomach  and  your  head, 
Both  good  and  bad,  without,  within. 

Turn,  wooden  horses,  speed  away. 
No  need  to  use  the  spurs  on  you 
To  make  you  gallop,  two  by  two; 
Turning  without  the  hope  of  hay. 

Haste,  horses  of  their  soul,  for  here 
The  twilight  deepens  into  night; 
And  dove  and  pigeon  will  unite 
Far  from  madame  and  from  the  fair. 

Turn,  turn,  the  sky  in  velvet  sheen 
And  golden  stars  is  slowly  dressed; 
The  lover's  parting  kiss  is  pressed — 
Turn  to  the  sounding  tambourine. 


MALINES 

T 

JL  HE  winds  that  toward  the  meadows  fly, 
Would  pick  a  quarrel  with  the  vanes 
Upon  the  roof  of  purple  slate — 
The  chateau  of  some  magistrate — 
How  pleasing  to  the  traveler's  eye ! 

Like  scenes  from  fairyland  we  pass 
Where  ash-trees  form  a  leafy  bower — 
And,  outlined  on  the  distant  plain, 
Are  vast  Saharas  of  ripe  grain, 
Alfalfa,  clover  and  white  grass. 

Our  train,  that  speeds  in  silence,  flies 
Along  the  peaceful  shady  lanes. 


I2O  Paul  Verlame 

The  cattle  sleep.    Repose,  sweet  kine, 
Where  the  wide  plain  extends  its  line 
Beneath  the  vaguely  tinted  skies. 

We  glide,  without  a  murmur,  on ; 

Each  coach  is  like  a  chamber,  where 

One  speaks  low  .  .  .  and  looking  through 

The  window  we  enjoy  this  view, 

Made  to  the  wish  of  Fenelon. 

WATER  COLORS 

GREEN 

.ERE  are  the  fruits,  flowers,  leaves,  and  branches 

meet; 

And  then  here  is  my  heart  for  your  delight. 
Oh,  tear  it  not  with  your  white  hands  so  sweet; 

I  would  these  humble  gifts  might  charm  your  sight. 

I  come  to  you,  my  fever-heated  brow 

Swept  by  the  morning  wind,  all  wet  with  dew. 

Oh,  at  your  feet  my  weary  form  allow, 

There  but  to  rest  and  there  to  dream  by  you. 

On  your  young  breast  let  rest  my  aching  head 
That  rings  with  your  last  kisses,  warmly  pressed; 

Until  the  tempest  pass,  on  that  fair  bed, 
Oh,  let  me  sleep  a  little,  while  you  rest. 

SPLEEN 

T 

JL  HE  roses  were  all  red 
And  the  ivy  was  all  black. 

Dear,  if  you  but  turn  your  head, 
All  my  despairs  come  back. 


Romances  Without  Words  121 

The  sky  was  too  blue — too  tender, 
The  sea  too  green  and  the  air  sweet,  too. 

I  fear  always — ah,  to  wait  and  wonder ! 
What  flight  atrocious  of  you. 

I  am  tired  of  hollies  green, 
Of  the  box-tree  and  the  yew, 

Of  the  landscape's  distant  sheen, 
And  of  all,  alas,  save  you. 


STREETS 


JL/ET'S  dance  a  jig! 

Always  I  love  her  pretty  eyes, 

More  clear  than  starlight  in  the  skies, 

What  haunting  mischief  in  them  lies! 

Let's  dance  a  jig! 

She  has  a  fashion  quite  apart, 
To  disconcert  a  lover's  heart, 
And  with  a  truly  charming  art! 

Let's  dance  a  jig! 

But  I  find  better  this,  the  power 
Of  kisses  on  her  mouth  in  flower, 
Since  she  is  dead  to  me  this  hour. 

Let's  dance  a  jig! 


122  Paul  Verlame 

Ah,  I  remember  the  old  days, 

Those  hours,  and  all  her  gracious  ways. 

This  is  the  best,  that  with  me  stays. 

Let's  dance  a  jig! 


WISDOM 
(SAGESSE) 


VII 


HE  false  fair  days  that  shone  all  day,  my  weary 

soul, 

Now  come  to  vibrate  in  the  copper-colored  West. 
Go,  close  thine  eyes,  poor  soul,  and  seek  at  once  thy 

rest. 
Fly  from  temptation's  snare.    The  infamies  unroll. 

All  day  they  burned  in  long  red  streaks  of  fiery  hail, 
Beating  to  earth  the  grapes  upon  the  hills  nearby; 
Cut  down  the  valley's  harvest,  ravished  the  clear  sky — 
The  blue,  the  singing  sky  that  bideth  thee  avail. 

Turn  pale  and  get  you  home  with  folded  hands.   What 

sorrows ! 

If  all  our  yesterdays  should  eat  our  good  tomorrows? 
If  the  old  folly  were  again  to  seek  us  out? 

These  memories  of  sins  long  past,  need  must  I  slay? 
They  make  a  final  charge,  the  most  supreme,  no  doubt. 
Oh,  go  and  pray  against  the  storm.    Go  thou  and  pray  1 


IX 


ISDOM  of  Louis  Racine,  how  I  envy  it. 
O,  not  to  have  followed  the  lessons  of  Rollin. 
Or  been  born  in  the  century  in  its  decline 
When  the  radiant,  setting  sun  made  life  so  fit. 

When  Maintenon  threw  upon  France  with  shadows 

sweet, 
The  peace  of  her  bonnets  of  linen,  white  and  fine. 

[125] 


126  Paul  Verlaine 

When  the  friendless  were  sheltered  in  a  spirit  benign, 
When  study  was  followed,  and  prayer,  as  it  were  meet. 

When  poet  and  doctor  simply  and  honestly 
Communed  with  the  fervor  of  humble  novices, 
Serving  at  Mass  and  singing  the  offices. 

And,  the  springtime  come,  having  care  only 
To  go  in  Auteuil  to  gather  lilies  and  roses — 
Like  Garo,  praising  God,  who  all  disposes. 


X 


O !  'Twas  Gallican — Jansenist — this  century  glad ! 
Toward  the  Middle  Ages,  enormous  and  delicate. 
I  would  my  weary  heart  in  grief  might  navigate 
Far  from  these  days  of  carnal  joy  and  pleasures  sad. 

King,  politician,  monk,  artisan  and  chemist; 
The  architect,  soldier,  doctor  and  advocate. — 
What  time!  O   that  my  shipwrecked  heart,   once 
more  elate, 

Might  feel  this  ardent  supple  force,  so  sadly  missed  1 

And  there  that  I  had  part,  in  some  way,  with  the  kings; 
Or  elsewhere,  no  matter,  save  the  thing  were  vital; 
That  I  were  as  a  saint  and  good,  thinking  high  things, 

In  that  great  moral  time  of  high  theology, 
Guided  by  the  unique  folly  of  the  Cross, 
Upon  your  wings  of  rock,  O  foolish  Cathedral ! 


Wisdom  127 

II 


o 


MY  God,  them  hast  wounded  me  with  love, 
And  the  wound  is  vibrating  still : 
O  my  God,  thou  hast  wounded  me  with  love. 

O  my  God,  I  am  stricken  with  thy  fear, 
And  the  burn  that  quivers  is  yet  here : 
O  my  God,  I  am  stricken  with  thy  fear. 

O  my  God,  I  have  known  that  all  is  vile, 

And  thy  glory  in  me  is  installed : 

O  my  God,  I  have  known  that  all  is  vile. 

Drown  my  soul  in  the  floods  of  thy  Wine, 
Found  my  life  in  the  Bread  of  thy  table : 
Drown  my  soul  in  the  floods  of  thy  Wine. 

Here  is  my  blood  that  I  have  not  poured, 
Here  is  my  flesh  unworthy  of  suffering : 
Here  is  my  blood  that  I  have  not  poured. 

Here  is  my  forehead  that  only  has  blushed, 

For  a  stool  for  Thy  feet  adorable : 

Here  is  my  forehead  that  only  has  blushed. 

Here  are  my  hands  that  have  not  toiled, 
For  the  ardent  coals  and  the  incense  rare : 
Here  are  my  hands  that  have  not  toiled. 

Here  is  my  heart  that  has  beat  but  in  vain, 
To  palpitate  on  the  thorns  of  Calvary: 
Here  is  my  heart  that  has  beat  but  in  vain. 


128  Paid  Verlaine 

Here  are  my  feet,  frivolous  voyagers, 
To  run  to  the  cry  of  thy  grace : 
Here  are  my  feet,  frivolous  voyagers. 

Here  is  my  voice,  noise  shameful  and  lying, 

For  the  reproaches  of  Penitence : 

Here  is  my  voice,  noise  shameful  and  lying. 

Here  are  my  eyes,  lighted  with  error, 
To  be  put  out  by  tears  and  prayers : 
Here  are  my  eyes,  lighted  with  error. 

Alas,  Thou,  God  of  oblation  and  pardon, 
What  is  the  depth  of  mine  ingratitude! 
Alas,  Thou,  God  of  oblation  and  pardon. 

God  of  terror  and  God  of  sanctity, 
Alas,  this  black  abyss  of  my  crime : 
God  of  terror  and  God  of  sanctity. 

Thou,  God  of  peace,  of  joy,  and  of  happiness, 

All  my  fears,  all  my  ignorance: 

Thou,  God  of  peace,  of  joy,  and  of  happiness. 

Thou  knowest  all  this,  all  this, 
And  that  I  am  poorer  than  any  one. 
Thou  knowest  all  this,  all  this. 

But  this  that  I  am,  my  God,  I  give  you. 


Ill 
ill 


H. 


.OPE  shines  as  doth  a  wisp  of  straw  in  the  stable. 
Why  fearest  thou  the   drunken  wasp's  wild  foolish 
flight? 


Wisdom  129 

See,  the  sun  powders  through  the  chink  a  ray  of  light. 
And  sleepest  thou,  thine  elbow  on  the  table  ? 

Poor  soul,  this  water  from  deep  icy  depths  unlocked, 
Drink  thou.    Then  sleep  again.    Thou  seest  how  I  wait, 
And  I  will  lull  the  dreams  of  thy  siesta  late, 
Singing  a  lullaby  as  to  an  infant  rocked. 

Noon  sounds.  Forgive  me,  Madame,  but  your  de- 
parture take. 

He  sleeps.  Strange,  what  a  sound  a  woman's  footsteps 
make 

Resounding  in  the  brain  of  poor,  unhappy  men. 

Noon  sounds.  I  have  sprinkled  water  in  the  chamber. 
Go,  sleep.  Hope  shines  like  pebbles  in  a  somber  fen. 
Ah,  when  shall  bloom  again  the  roses  of  September? 


IV 

Caspar  Haiiser  sings . 

a  calm  orphan,  I  am  come 
Rich  only  in  my  tranquil  eyes, 
Toward  men  who  live  in  great  cities : 
Nor  am  I  evil  born,  as  some. 

At  twenty  years  new  pain  to  bear, 
Under  love's  flame  most  dutiful, 
I  found  the  women  beautiful 

But  they  did  not  find  me  fair. 

So  that,  not  having  land  or  king, 
And  braver  than  my  love  unhealed, 
I  wished  to  die  on  war's  red  field, 

But  death  passed  by  so  slight  a  thing. 


130  Paul  Verldine 

Am  I  too  early  born,  or  late? 

What  has  the  world  for  me  to  do  ? 
My  pain  is  deep — O,  all  of  you, 
Pray  for  poor  Gaspard  and  his  fate. 


V 


A 


T 


GREAT  weariness 
Falls  on  my  life: 
Sleep,  all  hope, 
Sleep,  all  strife! 

I  see  nothing  more. 

I  lose  the  memory 

Of  bad  and  of  good.  .  . 

0  the  sad  history ! 

1  am  a  cradle 

A  hand  may  balance 
In  a  black  cave.  .  . 
Silence,  silence ! 


VI 


HE  sky  is  just  beyond  the  roof 
So  blue,  so  calm; 
A  tree-top  just  beyond  the  roof 
Rocks  its  slow  palm. 

The  chime  in  the  sky  that  I  see 

Distantly  rings ; 
A  bird  on  the  tree  that  I  see 

Plaintively  sings. 


Wisdom  131 

My  God,  my  God,  but  life  is  there, 

Tranquil  and  sweet ; 
This  peaceful  murmur  that  I  hear 

Comes  from  the  street! 

What  have  you  done,  you  who  stand  here, 

In  tears  and  ruth? 
Say,  what  have  you  done,  you  who  are  here, 

With  your  lost  youth? 


VII 


I 


KNOW  not  why 

My  bitter  spirit, 
With  troubled  wing  and  mad  flies  o'er  the  sea; 

Dreams  that  to  me  are  dear, 

On  frightened  pinions  fly, 
My  love  beats  on  the  billows.    Why,  O  why? 

Gull,  with  melancholy  flight, 
My  sad  thought  follows  the  sea. 
Balanced  when  the  storm  winds  flee; 
Dipping  o'er  the  hollows  white. 
Gull,  with  melancholy  flight. 

Drunk  with  the  sun 

And  liberty, 
An  instinct  guides  it  onward  o'er  the  deep. 

The  summer  breezes  free, 

O'er  the  crimson  waves,  each  one, 
Carry  it  softly  in  a  warm  half-sleep. 

Sad,  with  what  sadness  it  cries ! 
The  distant  pilot,  listening,  fears. 
It  floats,  dives,  and  disappears, 
Then  with  a  wounded  wing  will  rise 
To  wheel — and  then  more  sadly  cries. 


132  Paul  Verlaine 

I  know  not  why 

My  bitter  spirit 
With  troubled  wing  so  mad  flies  o'er  the  sea; 

Dreams  that  to  me  are  dear, 

On  frightened  pinions  fly, 
My  love  beats  on  the  billows.  Why,  O  why? 


T, 


IX 


HE  sound  of  a  horn  sobs  toward  the  wood, 
An  orphan  strain  that  wanders  at  will, 
Coming  and  dying  under  the  hill, 
Where  soft  winds  sigh  in  an  errant  mood. 

The  soul  of  a  wolf  weeps  in  this  strain, 
That  mounts  to  the  slowly  setting  sun; 
And  sorrow  and  pleasure  blend  as  one 

In  a  ravishing  tune  with  a  sad  refrain. 

And  to  heighten  this  languorous  plaint, 
In  long  white  streaks,  like  arrows  of  lint, 
From  a  crimson  sky  falls  the  silent  snow. 

And  the  strain  has  the  air  of  a  sigh 
Of  autumn,  so  soft  it  seems  and  low, 
Across  the  sleeping  landscape  sadly  spent. 


X 


O 


'UR  bodies — how  they  make  my  heart  expand 
With  languorous  pity  and  compassion  deep ! 
Ah !  Always  when  in  somber  depths  of  sleep, 
The  covers  stripe  the  skin — oppress  the  hand. 

Peeved  at  the  fevers  of  returning  day; 

Your  body  warm  with  sweat  that  slowly  dries — 


Wisdom  133 

A  bird,  half  wakened,  trembling  ere  it  flies< — 
And  O,  your  feet,  how  weary  of  the  way! 

The  breast — marked  by  a  heavy  striking  fist ! 
The  mouth — still  reddened  by  the  cruel  blow  I 
The  flesh — a  frail  and  quaking  piece  of  show ! 

The  eyes — poor  lovely  eyes  that  have  not  missed 
The  sadness  of  the  end  they  have  surmised ! 
Sad  body!  O  how  weak  and  how  chastised! 


XIII 


Loi 


)NG  rows  of  hedges  stretch  away 
In  fleecy  cloud-forms  toward  the  sky, 
White  as  the  mist  slow  drifting  by. 
How  sweetly  smells  the  growing  bay ! 

Some  trees  and  mills  in  proper  place, 
That  barely  touch  the  tender  green; 
And  here  the  playful  colts  are  seen 

That  swiftly  o'er  the  meadows  race. 

In  this  vague  Sabbath,  calm  and  light, 
Here  are  the  sheep,  also  at  play; 
The  strong,  large  sheep  in  white  array, 

And  gentle  as  their  fleece  is  white. 

And  now  comes,  bursting  from  on  high, 
A  flood  of  sound  rolled  in  volutes, 
From  chiming  bells  that  sound  like  flutes 

Upon  the  glowing  milk-white  sky. 


134  Paul  Verlaine 


XV 

HE  sea  is  fairer 
Than  cathedrals  are; 
A  tender  nurse 

That  soothes  when  all  things  mar. 
The  sea  where  prays 
Our  virgin  queen,  Marie  1 

She  has  the  gifts 

So  terrible  and  sweet. 

She  pardons  all 

When  cruel  billows  beat. 

This  vast  expanse 

Is  full  of  kindly  ways. 

How  patient,  too, 

When  the  loud  tempest  rings. 

A  friendly  breath 

Upon  the  water  sings : 

All  ye  who  hope 

In  vain,  die  without  pain. 

Then,  'neath  the  skies, 

A  vast  expanse  of  sheen. 

How  blue  she  is! 

Pink,  gray  and  living  green — 

Fairest  of  all, 

And  better  far  than  we. 


OF  OLD  AND  RECENTLY 
(JADIS  ET  NAGVERE) 


OF  OLD 

PROLOGUE 


B 


EGONE— vile  troupe ! 
Damned  children,  off  with  you ! 
These  leisures  are  your  due, — 
The  Chimera  lends  her  croup. 

Run,  climbing  on  her  back, 
As  swarms  a  flight  of  dreams 
That  to  a  sick  man  seems 

Flowers  on  his  curtains  black. 

This  moist  hand  that  is  mine, 
Feeble,  again,  but  at  last 
Without  fever  (that  has  passed!) 

Moves  with  an  aid  divine. 

My  hands  bless  you,  little  cares, — 
Little  flies  of  my  black  sun 
And  my  white  nights. — Run, 

Fly  quickly,  little  despairs! 

Little  joys,  hopes,  sad  ways, 
That  only  yesterday 
Left  me  for  other  preys.  .  . 

Go,  agri  somniaf 


PIERROT 

To  Leon  Valade. 

kH,  this  is  not  the  moon-struck  dreamer  here, 
That  used  to  rail  his  forbears,  o'er  the  door. 
His  joy,  quite  like  his  candle,  is  no  more. — 
Today  his  specter  haunts  us,  thin  and  clear. 

[i37l 


138  Paul  Verlaine 

And  now  where  flashing  lightning  takes  its  flight, 
His  pale  blouse  has  the  air  as  of  a  shroud; 
With  mouth  agape,  he  seems  to  shriek  aloud 
Against  the  gnawing  worm  that  holds  him  quite. 

And  with  the  flapping  of  some  bird  of  night, 
He  makes  with  sleeves  that  flutter  long  and  white, 
The  foolish  signs  none  answer  from  the  earth. 

His  eyes  are  holes  that  burn  with  sulphurous  flame, 
And  frightful  are  the  powdered  cheeks  that  frame 
The  bloodless  face  and  pointed  nose  of  death. 


I 


KALEIDOSCOPE 

To  Germain  Nottveau 


N  a  street  in  the  heart  of  a  village  of  dreams, 
This  shall  seem  as  long  since,  when  one  lived  in  the 

past: 
For   an   instant   quite   vague   and   yet   gripping   one 

fast  .  . 
Oh,  this  sun  through  the  rising  mist  darting  its  beams  I 

Oh,  this  cry  on  the  sea  and  this  voice  in  the  wood ! 
This  shall  seem  as  though  all  lay  afar  from  one's  range; 
An  awakening  slowly  from  cycles  of  change 
And  with  all  clearer  shown  and  with  all  understood 

In  this  street  in  the  heart  of  the  magical  town, 
Where  the  organs  at  dusk  grind  the  jigs  with  a  sweep, 
Where  cafes  shall  have  cats  on  the  dressers  asleep, 
And  the  bands  of  musicians  stroll  noisily  down; 

Yet  so  sad  will  this  seem  as  almost  to  benumb, 

With  the  tears  flowing  warm  that  the  cheek  softly  feels, 


Of  Old  and  Recently  139 

With  the  laughter  that  sobs  in  the  noise  of  the  wheels — 
Invocations  that  rise  to  the  deaths  yet  to  come ; 

With  the  words  very  old,  like  bouquets  pale  and  dead; 
Where  the  noise  of  the  public  dance  rings  to  arouse ; 
And  the  widows  with  copper  bound  close  to  their 

brows — 
All  these  peasants  that  cut  through  the  crowd  that  is 

led 

To  stroll  there,  and  who  talk  with  the  youthful  black- 
guards,— 

With  the  old  men  all  marked  with  a  shameful 
disease, — 

However,  not  far  in  the  by-path  one  sees 

From  some  public  fete  rise  the  bursting  petards. 

And  all  this,  as  though  dreaming,  one  wakens  to  see, 
And  then  sleeping  again  falls  to  dreaming  alway 
Of  the  selfsame  enchantment,  the  selfsame  display, — 
Summer — the  grass — noise  moire  of  the  flight  of  a  bee. 


INTERIOR 

ITH  large  and  somber  folds  an  ample  tapestry 
Descending  with  a  sheer  and  stately  emphasis 
Along  the  four  great  walls  of  a  retreat — abyss 
Mysterious  of  shadows  wed  with  luxury. 

Old  furniture  and  dazzling  stuffs  that  faded  be; 
An  ancient  bed,  half-seen,  and  vague  as  a  regret; 
And  over  all  the  seal  of  age  and  secret  set — 
Some  allegory  through  whose  depths  one  cannot  see. 

No  pictures,  books, — no  piano  or  blossoms  light; 
Only  in  the  deep  gloom  upon  the  cushions,  dumb, 
A  ghostly  woman  sitting,  clad  in  blue  and  white, 


140  Paul  Verlame 

Who  sadly  smiles — witness  disquieting — where  join 

Slow  echoes  of  a  song,  epithalamium, 

In  an  obsession  made  of  musk  and  of  benzoin. 


ART  OF  POETRY 

To  Charles  Morice 

V-/HOOSE  the  music  before  all  things, 

And  for  this  the  Uneven  prefer; 

More  vague,  more  soluble  in  the  air, 
With  nothing  that  weighs  or  that  clings. 

Also,  one  should  fail  not  to  choose 

His  words  in  a  contemptuous  way. 

Nothing  is  more  dear  than  a  song  gray, 
Where  the  Indecisive  and  the  Precise  fuse. 

This,  the  bright  eyes  behind  the  veils. 

This,  the  full  day  trembling  at  noon. 

This,  the  warm  autumn  sky  aswoon, 
Or  when  the  blue  starry  host  prevails. 

For  we  wish  but  the  Nuance  to  adorn, 

Not  Color,  nothing  but  vagueness  and  cloud. 
Oh!  The  Nuance  alone,  betrothed,  endowed — 

Dream  to  the  dream,  flute  to  the  horn  I 

Shun  the  Epigram,  the  assassin, 

The  cruel  Wit  and  the  Laugh  impure ; 
For  the  Heavens  weep,  nor  will  endure 

This  vile  garlic  from  the  kitchen. 

Take  Eloquence  and  wring  its  neck, 

And  'twill  strengthen  your  verse  often-time 
To  hold  in  leash  the  enterprising  Rhyme 

That  runs  away  and  often,  without  check. 


Of  Old  and  Recently  141 

Oh!  who  can  tell  the  wrongs  of  Rhyme? 
What  child  or  negro  was  the  first  to  fling 
The  world  this  bauble,  that  can  only  ring 

Hollow  and  false  beneath  the  file  of  Time? 

Music  again — music  that  moves  1 

That  thy  verse  be  a  flying  thing, 

Fleeing  from  a  soul  on  speeding  wing 
Toward  other  skies  and  other  loves. 

And  then,  that  thy  verse  may  endure, 
O  sprinkle  it  with  the  morning  breeze, 
Fragrant  with  thyme  under  the  trees. 

And  all  the  rest  is  .      .  literature. 


Ti 


THE  CLOWN 


HE  stage,  half-shaken  by  a  noisy  orchestra, 
Creaks  underneath  the  clown's  big  feet  with  sharp 

refrain; 

Whilst  he  with  his  good-natured  chaff  and  fine  disdain 
Berates  the  gaping  crowd  that  throngs  the  muddy  way. 

His  costume,  with  his  forehead  chalked  and  cheeks  so 

gay, 

Is    marvelous.      He    speaks,    then    makes    a    dumb 

appeal, — 

Receiving  from  behind  the  kicks  he  does  not  feel. 
Embraces  then  his  doughty  dame  and  makes  his  play. 

With  heart  and  soul  they  cheer  his  gross  buffoonery. 
And  in  his  gaudy  doublet,  twirling  all  awry, 
'Twere  better  that  he  stop.     His  buskins  might  not 
hold! 

But  this  that  one  can  most  admire  and  most  defend, 
Is  this  perruque  he  wears,  and  on  the  queue,  so  bold, 
The  saucy  butterfly  poised  proudly  at  the  end. 


I42  Paul  Ferlaine 

ALLEGORY 

To  Jules  F  ale  don 

JLxESPOTIC,  heavy  Summer,  with  a  languid  sweep, 
Like  some  bored  king  watching  a  tortured  victim  cry, 
Stretches  itself  beneath  the  white  and  ardent  sky 
And  yawns.     Far  from  his  work  the  toiler  lies  asleep. 

Weary,  the  morning  lark  dumb  silence  seems  to  keep. 
No  cloud,  no  breath  of  air,  naught  seems  to  stir  on  high 
To  place  a  wrinkle  where  smooth  depths  of  azure  lie 
Unmoved,  and  silence  ends  in  silence  vast  and  deep. 

Even  the  grasshoppers  have  felt  the  heavy  spell. 
In  their  straight  beds  of  stones,  uneven,  in  the  dell, 
The  little  babbling  brooks,  half  dry,  have  ceased  to 
flow. 

Incessantly  the  surge  of  sultry  light  thrown  back 

Luminously  extends  its  flux  and  reflux  slow.  .   . 

And  here  and  there  are  flitting  wasps,  yellow  and  black. 


THE  INN 

To  Jean  Moreas 


W. 


HITE  walls  and  roof  of  red,  this  is  the  Inn,  be- 
nign, 

Set  by  the  dusty  road  that  makes  our  poor  feet  bleed. 

Blue  wine,  good  bread,  for  passport  not  the  slightest 
need — 

Gay  little  inn  with  "Bonheur"  on  the  swinging  sign. 


Of  Old  and  Recently  143 

Here  thou  canst  smoke,  and  sing,  and  sleep,  for  all  is 

thine. 

The  host  is  an  old  soldier,  and  his  wife  can  feed 
And  wash  and  comb  ten  scruffy  urchins  gone  to  seed, 
And  talk  of  love  and  ease  and  never  once  repine. 

The  kitchen,  with  its  low  black  roof  where  roosts  the 

hen, 
Its  chromos  "Maleck  Adel"  and  "The  Three  Wise 

Men," 
Welcomes  you  with  the  perfume  of  good  cabbage  soup. 

Do  you  not  hear  ?    This  is  the  pot  that  hums  a  lay 
With  the  clock's  ticktacking  pulse.    And,  if  you  stoop, 
An  open  window  shows  the  landscape,  far  away. 


CIRCUMSPECTION 

To  Gaston  Senechal 

IVE  me  your  hand,  breathe  softly  here,  let's  find  a 

seat 

Under  this  giant  tree  where  light  winds  die  away 
In  broken  sighs  that  flutter  'neath  the  branches  gray, — 
Bathed  in  the  soft  caressing  moonlight  pale  and  sweet. 

Sit  still,  and  toward  our  knees  let  fall  our  eyes,  dis- 
creet, 

And  think  of  nothing — only  dream.  Give  them  their 
way, 

The  happiness  that  flies,  and  love  that  will  not  stay. 

Our  hair,  an  owl's  wing  touches  in  our  calm  retreat. 

Let  us  forget  to  hope.    But  wise  and  self-contained, 
Our  souls  should  hold  the  spell  and  this  that  has  re- 
mained 
From  the  serene  death  of  the  sun,  so  still  and  deep. 


144  Paul  Verlame 

In  silence  let  us  dream  in  this  nocturnal  charm. 

It  is  not  well  to  trouble  in  his  quiet  sleep 

The  god  of  nature,  mute,  and  yet  so  full  of  harm. 


T 


VERSES  TO  BE  SLANDERED 

To  Charles  Vignier. 


HIS  evening  leaning  o'er  your  sleeping  form,  dear 

one; 

Your  body  lying  chastily  on  my  humble  bed; 
As  one  who  ponders  over  something  he  has  read, 
I  gazed,  and  saw  that  all  is  vain  beneath  the  sun ! 

And  ah,  that  one  should  live,  what  marvel,  finely  done ! 
We  are  so  like  the  flowers  where  fold  on  fold  is 

spread! 

O  thought  bewildering,  that  nearly  turns  the  head! 
Sleep,  poor  one,  sleep !  Through  fear  for  you  my  sleep 
is  gone. 

Sorrow  of  loving  you,  my  frail  love,  breathing  low, 
As  one  breathes  on  that  fateful  day  when  he  must  go. 
Lips  dumb  and  cold — life  waiting  at  death's  portal. 

O  mouth  that  laughs  in  dream  upon  my  mouth,  and 

waits 

The  other  more  ferocious  laugh  with  which  it  mates  I 
Oh,  wake !  and  tell  me  quick.  The  soul,  is  it  immortal? 


Of  Old  and  Recently  145 

II 
LANGUOR 

To  Georges  Courteline 


I 


AM  the  Empire  in  its  decadence,  where  one 
By  one  they  pass,  the  great  Barbarians  white, — 
Composing,  in  an  idle  mood,  acrostics  light, 
In  style  of  gold  where  dance  the  languors  of  the  sun. 

My  lonely  soul's  heart-sick  with  weariness  alone. 
Yonder  they  say  is  waged  the  long  drawn  bloody  fight. 
O  weak  of  will,  and  full  of  this  corroding  blight! 
Unable  to  enjoy  life's  flower — no  triumphs  won — 

To  seek  calm  death,  life's  final  blessing,  no  desire! 
All's  drunk!     Bathyllus,  have  you  quit  your  laughter 

gay? 
Ah,  all  is  drunk, — all  eaten !    Nothing  more  to  say ! 

Only  a  silly  poem  you  scatter  in  the  fire; 
Only  a  sullen  slave  neglected  of  all  men; 
Only  a  sad  disgust,  for  reasons  past  my  ken ! 


T< 


IV 

LANDSCAPE 


OWARD  St.  Denis  an  ugly  landscape  met  the  eye, 
However,  there  one  day  we  strolled,  my  love  and  I. 
We  both  were  angry  and  quarreled  on  the  way. 
The  level  sun  of  summer  burned  with  its  steady  ray 
The  plain,  all  dry  and  parched,  and  seeming  like  a 
roast. 


146  Paul  Verlaine 

'Twas  shortly  after  we  had  had  the  Siege  and  most 
Of  "country  houses"  had  been  leveled  to  the  ground. 
Others  were   building  up  like   toy  homes,   round  on 

round ; 

And  some  had  cannon  balls  imbedded  in  the  plaster 
And  thus  inscribed :    A  SOUVENIR  OF  THE  DISASTER. 


O 


VI 

THE  POET  AND  THE  MUSE 


CHAMBER,  have  you  kept  their  foolish  spec- 
ters grim, 

Where  falls  the  gloom,  and,  save  the  spider,  naught  is 
heard? 

0  chamber,  have  you  kept  those  figures  vaguely  blurred, 
Traced  by  the  dirty  walls  and  scattered  scratches,  dim? 

Fie !    Furnished  chamber,  that  recoils  from  all  of  these 
In  this  dry  play  of  distance  to  the  visage  stirred 
Of  memories  of  so  many  fateful  things  occurred, — 
Do  they  regret  those  nights — those  nights  of  -Hercules? 

Interpret  as  you  please,  it  is  not  that,  I  say: 

You  will  not  guess  my  meaning,  folk  of  good  intent. 

1  say  to  you  that  all  your  thoughts  are  far  away. 

O  chamber  that  takes  flight  in  rays  so  sadly  spent, 
You  only  know !    Perhaps  it  is  not  past  your  ken, 
What  marriage  nights  shall  have  deflowered  our  nights, 
since  then! 


Of  Old  and  Recently  147 

VIII 
A  ROGUE 

To  Jean  Moreas 

ITH  the  eyes  of  a  death's-head, — a  skull 
That  the  moon  makes  meager  and  thin, 
All  my  past — let  us  say  all  my  remorse — 
From  my  window  mocks  me,  within. 

With  the  voice  of  an  old  man  failing  fast, 

As  one  hears  at  a  theater, 
All  my  remorse — let  us  say  all  my  past — 

Mumbles  a  tralala  bitter. 

With  the  fingers,  green,  of  a  corpse  on  a  gibbet, 

A  fool  frets  a  wheezy  guitar; 
Dancing  on  the  future,  on  exhibit, 

With  an  elasticity  rare. 

Old  rogue,  begone !     I  love  not  this  at  all, 

Cease  your  fool  songs  and  dances  gay. 
He  answers  thus:    "This  is  less  farcical 

Than  you're  inclined  to  think  today." 

But,  as  to  your  concern,  O  sweet  Knave,  pish ! 

This  much,  at  least,  I'd  have  you  know: 
I'm  mindful  but  this  far,  that,  if  you  wish, 

Why, — clear  out ! — go  to  Jericho  ! 


148  Paul  Ferlaine 


IX 
MADRIGAL 


Y 


OU  madden  me  these  days  of  autumn  pale  and 

white, 

Because  within  your  eyes  there  burns  a  beastly  light. 
And  you  have  gnawed  me,  like  the  princess  Mouse,  the 

while, 
With  the  fine  end  of  that  sharp  tooth  which  is  your 

smile, 

Maiden  august,  who  makes  my  sorrow  blazon  clear, 
Again,  as  with  the  rancid  oil  of  your  old  tear! 
Yea,  foolish,  I  will  die  of  that  damned  look  you  keep  I 
But  go  (will  you?)  the  unsuspecting  pool's  asleep, 
And  from  the  lilies,  fleet  one  needs  acclaim  at  last, 
Dead  water  has  drunk  up  the  wind  that  swept  each 

mast. 

Throw  yourself  in,  exalt !  to  make  my  grief  more  drear, 
Speak  thou  in  tones  so  low  one  must  be  deaf  to  hear. 


RECENTLY 
PROLOGUE 

HESE  are  things  of  the  twilight, 
Visions  when  the  night  declines. 
O  Truth,  thou  giveth  them  light 
Even  as  a  dawn  that  shines 

So  dimly  in  the  shade  abhorred, 
One  doubts,  each  moment,  if  these  be 
Created  by  the  pale  moon,  blurred 
By  tossing  branches  of  a  tree, 


Of  Old  and  Recently  149 

Or,  if  these  phantoms,  dark,  morose, 
Come  hither  to  take  shape  and  soul, 
Uniting  here  and  circling  close 
In  a  harmonious  whole 

Of  nature  and  of  the  sun; — 

Man  blessing,  God  proclaiming  high, 

And  offering,  one  by  one, 

Pure  hymns  to  the  sweet  blue  sky. 


LOVE 
(AMOUR) 


BALLAD 
ON  Two  YOUNG  ELM  TREES 


M 


.Y  garden  was  sweet  as  'twas  fair, 

Though  humble  'twas  rich  to  possess ; 
Half  orchard,  with  vegetables  rare, 

With  some  flowers  that  bloomed,  none  the  less, 
In  colors  of  happiness. 

Birds  sat  on  the  boughs  of  each  tree; 
And  grass  stretched  for  idleness — 

But  dearer  my  elms  were  to  me. 

From  my  dining  room,  lighted  and  clear, 

Where  wine  often  flowed  to  excess, 
I  saw  them  salute  in  the  air 

When  touched  by  the  wind  in  its  stress, 
And  bend  in  a  loving  caress, 

Their  leaves  seemed  to  flute  as  in  glee; 
In  that  close  there  was  joy,  I  confess — 

But  dearer  my  elms  were  to  me. 

Alas !  when  came  time  to  impair 

My  joy  without  hope  of  redress; 
The  orchard  and  garden  did  share 

In  the  gloom  of  my  bitter  distress; 
And  the  flowers  that  bloomed  to  excess, 

And  the  grass  that  pillowed  so  free; 
And  the  bird  that  my  sorrows  impress — 

But  dearer  my  elms  were  to  me. 

ENVOI 

O  prince,  I  have  known  the  simpleness, 

And  joy  where  your  hamlets  be, 
With  health,  and  love,  and  with  kindliness — 

But  dearer  my  elms  were  to  me. 

[i53l 


154  Paul  Verlame 


PARSIFAL 

IT  ARSIFAL  has  vanquished  the  Damsels,  their  gentle 
Babble  and  amusing  luxury,  and  their  bent 
Toward  the  Flesh  of  the  virgin  boy  they  would  tempt 
To  love  their  glowing  breasts  and  their  gentle  babble. 

He  has  vanquished  the  Woman  with  heart  so  subtle, 
Displaying  her  tempting  arms  and  throat  like  a  lily 

bent; 

He  has  vanquished  Hades  and  returned  to  his  tent 
With  the  heavy  trophy  of  burnished  metal, 

With  the  spear  in  his  arms  that  pierced  the  Saviour's 

side. 

He  has  healed  the  king  and  now  a  king,  in  his  pride, 
He  has  himself  become — priest  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

He  kneels  to  adore  in  garments  of  golden  fire 

The  vase  where  the  Saviour's  blood  like  the  morning 

shines — 
And,  O,  the  voices  of  children  singing  in  the  choir ! 


EVENING  THOUGHT 

V-rf  ROUGHED  in  the  withered  grass  and  cold,  an 

exile, 

Under  the  yews,  frost  white,  of  that  sad  isle; 
Or  wandering  like  the  ghostly  forms  that  seem 
In  that  wild  landscape  born  as  of  a  dream, 
Where  watch  their  fabled  herds  ere  taking  flight 
The  blue-eyed  Barbarians  with  visage  white, 
The  tender  Ovid,  lonely  bard  of  Love, 
Sweeps  with  his  glance  the  sky — below — above, 
And  contemplates  the  wide  expanse  of  sea. 


Love  155 

His  hair  is  thin — the  gray  locks  blowing  free 
Above  a  forehead  wrinkled,  fold  on  fold; 
His  habit  rent,  the  flesh  cut  by  the  cold, 
Forlorn  the  haunting  smile,  eyes  dull  and  worn, 
His  beard,  now  nearly  white,  is  rudely  torn. 

How  all  these  sorrows  witness,  in  their  way, 

A  life  complete  with  sadness  and  dismay; 

Excessive  love,  fierce  envy,  burning  hate, 

And  some  slight  obligations  to  the  State. 

Thus  Ovid  mourns  the  Rome  that  once  acclaimed 

Him  bard  of  Love — that  Rome  his  muse  proclaimed. 

So  Jesus,  who  obscures  this  life  of  mine, 
Not  being  Ovid,  I  at  least  am  Thine ! 


LUCIEN  L&TINOIS 
III 


O 


WOMAN  !  Prudent,  wise, — calm  enemy, 
As  yet  half  conscious  of  your  victory. 
Killing  the  wounded,  seeking  out  the  spoils, 
And  spreading  ruin  far  with  iron  and  flame. 
O  good  uncertain  friend,  so  little  sure, 
Sweet — often  too  sweet — like  a  fire  of  coals 
That  lulls  one  in  a  gentle  soothing  sleep 
Where  death  to  soul  and  body  often  lurks. 
Woman,  I'm  done  with  you  for  good — take  here 
(However,  with  a  sense  of  half  regret 
From  one  that  one  remorse  alone  recalls) 
This  insult.   But  as  you  can  never  have 
Remorse,  more  than  a  pine  a  living  shade, 
This,  then,  is  my  definitive  farewell. 
Tree  fatal  to  the  refuge  of  our  race, 
From  Eden  to  this  Irritated  Day. 


156  Paul  Verlaine 


I 


HAVE  a  mania  for  love.    My  foolish  heart  is  weak. 
No  matter  when,  no  matter  what,  no  matter  where. 
Wherever  the  light  of  beauty,  or  virtue,  or  valiance 

shines, 

There  my  heart  throws  itself  with  furious  speed; 
And,  having  clasped  at  last,  embraces  a  hundred  times 
The  being  or  object  it  pursued  with  tireless  zeal. 
Then,  when  the  illusion  has  flown — has  taken  wing, 
My  heart  becomes  lonely  and  sad,  yet  faithful  and  true ; 
Leaving  to  the  ingrates  something,  at  least,  of  itself' — 
Blood  or  flesh.     Then,   without   further  grieving  to 

death, 

Immediately  embarks  for  the  isles  of  the  Chimeras, 
Carrying  naught  but  the  bitter  tears  it  had  known, 
And  the  frightful  despairs  of  the  moment — 
Then  re-embarks. 

I  have  a  mania  for  love.    What  shall  I  do  ? 
Bah,  nothing! 

XVIII 

'O  you  recall  in  Paradise,  dear  soul, 
The  station  at  Auteuil — the  trains  of  old 
That  bore  you  daily,  come  from  La  Chapelle? 
Now  all  is  over  I    Well  do  I  recall 
Our  meeting  places  'neath  the  sloping  stairs 
Awaiting  you — unable  to  forget 
Your  graceful  movements  coming  down  the  steps. 
How  agile  and  how  slim — an  angel  form 
On  a  celestial  ladder,  floating  down. 
And  then  your  friendly  smile,  so  filial; 
The  cordial  clasp  of  hands — your  loyalty. 


Love  157 

Your  eyes — sweet,  lively,  clear  and  innocent — 
Whose  somber  light  went  straight  into  my  heart 
And  penetrated  every  shadow  there. 
The  welcome  o'er,  and  my  old  arms  in  yours 
We  went  to  stroll  beneath  the  tuneful  trees. 
Ah,  how  we  talked !    Of  metaphysics,  too. 
And  how  you  argued — little  charbonnier — 
With  stubborn  frankness  ready  to  deny, 
But  quick  to  pause  at  the  first  step  of  doubt. 
Then  we  returned  more  slowly  by  the  route, 
Some  scholars  with  me,  rather  with  us  both, 
And  dined  on  little,  smoking  very  soon. — 
And  for  a  long  time  soothing  a  vague  need. 

Poor  child,  your  voice,  your  voice  in  the  Bois ! 


PARALLELLY 
(PARALLELEMENT) 


DEDICATION 


D 


O  you  remember,  coquette  too  mature, 
Whose  blarney  many  a  vulgar  flame  beguiled, 
The  good  old  times,  when,  young  and  quite  cock-sure, 
You  heard  me  gush  in  hyperbolic  style  ? 

And  do  you  keep  a  memory  of  those  days, 

O  plump  one  or  the  jerseys,  poult-de-soi? 

How  I  of  old  in  queer  fantastic  ways, 

Made  court  by  mail,  through  gallant  postal  law? 

And,  Madam  Mother,  have  you  quite  forgot? 
No,  no,  I  vow,  even  in  your  foolish  fetes ; 
My  taste  was  bad,  my  grammar  it  was  not, — 
Unlike  your  own  dear  letters,  silly  sheets. 

And  when  the  hour  of  marriage  rang  at  last 
They  told  me,  Ariadne,  it  was  drear. 
My  hungry  eyes,  my  kisses  fierce  and  fast, 
To  your  refusals  making  a  dumb  ear. 

Do  you  recall,  if  it  indeed  be  well, 

Within  your  widowed  heart's  dull  murmuring, 

This  I  so  apt,  terrible,  horrible, 

And  you,  dear  jewel,  taking  to  the  thing? 

And  all  the  row,  the  circus,  and  affrays, 
That  in  the  end  upset  our  sad  abode; 
And  have  you  not  and  have  not  I,  these  days, 
Seen  the  last  shameful  windings  of  our  road? 

How  sad !  and  here  am  I,  lamentable 
Debris  on  floods  of  vice — a  sorry  sight; 
And  here  are  you,  a  jade  detestable, 
And  the  thing  eats  me,  till  I  needs  must  write. 

[161] 


1 62  Paul  Verlaine 


ALLEGORY 

kN  ancient  temple  crumbling  like  a  dream 
On  the  dim  summit  of  a  yellow  hill, 
Like  some  old  throneless  king,  weeping  at  will, 
Is  vaguely  mirrored  on  a  sluggish  stream. 

With  stupid  mien  and  sleepy  listless  air, 
A  withered  Naiad  with  her  drowsy  wiles, 
Plagues  with  a  willow  wand  a  faun  that  smiles, 
Like  some  old  gallant  rustic  sitting  there. 

Stale  and  insipid  theme  that  saddens  me! 
What  bard  among  the  singers  can  there  be 
Like  me?  Who  moves  me,  in  a  sullen  rage? 

What  worn  out,  frayed  and  dusty  tapestry, 
Trite  as  the  settings  of  an  opera  stage, 
As  false,  alas,  as  is  my  destiny? 


WO  forms  watching  the  swallows  in  their  flight. 
One  pale,  with  jet  black  hair;  the  other  blonde 
And  pink — their  flowing  garments  of  old  blond 
Like  vague  serpents  twining,  cloudlike  and  light. 

Both  languorous  as  asphodels  where  bright 
The  sky  glows  with  a  full  moon,  soft  and  round, 
Whose  rays  throb  with  emotion,  deep,  profound. 


Parallelly  1 63 

Thus,  with  arms  pressing  their  bodies  supple, 
Strange  couple  pitying  every  other  couple, 
They  dream  upon  the  moonlit  balcony. 
Behind  them  in  the  room's  rich  somber  shade, 
Enthroned  in  stately  pomp,  as  in  a  play, 
And  full  of  perfumes,  stands  the  Bed,  unmade. 


VI 

SAPPHO 


W 


ITH  hollow  eyes  and  bosoms  firm  and  bold, 
The  maddened  Sappho,  torn  by  passions  white, 
Runs  like  a  she-wolf  on  the  beaches  cold. 

She  dreams  of  Phaon,  forgetful  of  the  Rite, 

And,  seeing  how  her  tears  so  illy  fare, 

By  handfuls  pulls  her  long  and  streaming  hair. 

Then  she  evokes,  with  grief,  silent,  yet  deep, 
The  days  when  brightly  shown  the  early  fame 
Of  those  warm  loves  extolled  in  songs  of  flame, 
Sent,  now,  in  memory  to  the  maids  asleep. 

With  pallid  lids  on  weary  eyes,  she  bends 
And  springs  into  the  waters  of  La  Moire. 
On  the  black  waves  the  lights  from  heaven  pour — 
And  pale  Selene  has  avenged  the  Friends. 


164  Paul  Verlaine 

HARLOTS 
I 

To  the  Princess  Roukine. 
"Capellos  de  Angelas" 
(Frandise  espagnol) 

\^J  GLY  as  though  drawn  by  Boucher, 
No  powder  in  her  flowing  hair, 
She's  foully  blonde,  yet  passing  fair 
To  us  who  sin  with  her  each  day. 

And  it  is  mine,  I  think  by  right, 
This  golden  head  so  often  kissed; 
This  warm  cascade  so  oft  embraced, 
Whose  ends  light  me  with  rays  of  light. 

But  she  is  more  to  me,  I  hold, 
Like  some  deep  flaming  circle  o'er 
The  entrance  of  a  temple  door; 
Or  like  the  fabled  fleece  of  gold. 

And  who  shall  sing  this  beauty's  source 
Save  me,  her  chorister  and  priest, 
Her  slave,  her  master,  who  at  least 
Thus  damns  himself  without  remorse. 

Her  body  with  its  harmonies, 

As  soft  and  white  as  is  a  rose; 

As  white  as  milk  and  pink  as  those 

Pink  lilies  blown  'neath  purple  skies. 

Thighs  beautiful,  breasts  firm  and  tense; 
The  back,  the  loins,  the  stomach,  feast 
For  the  eyes  and  the  hands  in  quest, 
And  for  the  mouth  and  every  sense. 


Parallelly  165 

Mignon,  let  us  see  if  thy  bed 
Has  always  'neath  the  curtain's  glow 
The  bewitched  pillow,  bulging  so, — 
And  the  mad  sheets !    O  toward  thy  bed ! 


B 


Ill 
CASTA  PIANA 


LUE  hair  with  strands  like  rusty  wheat, 
Cold  eyes  and  hard  that  are  too  sweet, 
Beauty  like  a  warm  summer  noon; 
Breasts  finely  arched  whose  odors  scent 
Your  cruel  form  magnificent; 
Your  pallors  stolen  from  the  moon, — 

These  charms  o'erwhelm  us  with  their  guile, 
Notre  Dame  of  the  garrets  vile 
In  which  we  venerate  your  power 
With  unblessed  candles, — Aves  sung 
For  which  no  Angelus  was  rung, — 
Yet  tolled  so  many  a  sinful  hour. 

You  smell  of  brimstone  and  of  fire. 
Men  turn  to  fools  at  your  desire. 
To  craven  weaklings,  vague  and  fleet, 
In  less  time  than  to  act  or  say, 
To  pass  a  dazzled  time  of  day, 
Or  kiss  the  slippers  on  your  feet. 

Your  garret  is  a  fearful  place ! 
Within  it  every  day  you  face 
The  job  of  beating  scoundrels  there; 
Of  chasing  rogues  on  pleasure  bent, 
Furnished  the  sacred  sacrament. 
For  you,  how  little  do  they  care ! 


1 66  Paul  Verlaine 

You're  right,  my  girl!     So  love  me,  then, 

Better  than  young  or  aged  men 

Unskillful  in  the  loving  art. 

For  I — I  know  your  manner  best; 

I  know  each  movement,  each  behest; 

And  pledge  you  an  indulgent  heart. 

Nay,  nay,  but  put  that  frown  to  rout, 
Casta,  and  drive  away  that  pout; 
And  let  me  sip  those  sweets  of  thine 
Piana, — sugar,  salt,  and  spice — 
Sweets  that  my  thirsty  lips  entice — 
And  let  me  drink  thy  balms  divine. 

REFERENCES 
II 

FALSE  IMPRESSION 


D 


AME  mouse  scampers, 
Black  in  the  gray  of  eve. 

Dame  mouse  scampers, 
Gray  in  the  dark. 

They  sound  the  bell. 
All  the  good  prisoners  sleep. 
They  sound  the  bell, 
You,  too,  should  sleep. 

Not  the  bad  dream. 
No  thought  but  of  your  loves. 
Not  the  bad  dream; 
The  good  always! 

The  wide  moonlight! 
They  snore  close  by  your  side. 
The  wide  moonlight 
In  reality! 


Parallelly  167 

A  cloud  passes, 
It  grows  dark  as  an  oven, 
A  cloud  passes : 
Hold,  the  dawn  of  day  I 

Dame  mouse  scampers ! 
Pink  in  the  rays  so  blue. 

Dame  mouse  scampers: 
Get  up,  you  lazy ! 


Ill 

OTHERS 

HE  jail-yard  blossoms  with  care, 
Like  the  forehead 
Of  each  one  there 

Who  goes,  with  faltering  step  and  thigh  all 
Shrunken  quite, 
Along  the  wall 
Foolish  with  light. 

Turn,  Samsons  without  Delilah, 

Without  Philistine, 

Turn  well  the 

Mill  the  Fates  predestine; 
And,  railing  not  the  law,  apart, 

Crush  at  each  move 

Your  faith,  your  heart 

And  your  love. 

They  pass !  and  their  poor  shoes 
Make  a  dry  sound; 
With  pipe  at  nose 
Humbly  they  go  round. 


1 68  Paul  Verlaine 

A  word — the  dungeon  is  their  lot ! 
Not  a  sigh. 
It  is  so  hot 
They  think  to  die. 

And  I — I  go  in  measured  strides 

With  that  sad  band. 

Prepared,  besides, 

Nothing  to  withstand. 
And  if  I,  too,  shall  contrite  be, 

Thy  stubborn  vow, 

Society 

Did  you  choose  me? 

Brothers  mine,  good  old  robbers, 

Sweet  vagabonds, 

Full  blown  sharpers, 

My  heart  responds! 
Smoke  on  philosophically, 

Promenade  you, 

Peacefully. 

'Tis  sweet  to  nothing  do. 


IV 
REVERSIBLES 

Totus  in  maligno  positus. 


o 


HEAR  the  cats  that  make 

A  long,  shrill  cry, 
Swift  calls  that  come  to  wake, 

Then  slowly  die. 
Ah,  where  this  sad  scene  blends, 
The  Alreadys  are  the  Agains! 


Parallelly  169 

O  the  vague  Angelus! 

(Whence  comes  its  toll?) 
See  light  the  Salutaris 

In  the  depth  of  a  hole. 
Ah,  in  these  mournful  ways, 
The  Nevers  are  the  Always ! 

What  wild  dreams  fleet, 

You  wide  white  walls, 
That  the  sobs  repeat 

With  doleful  calls ! 
Ah,  in  this  place  that  severs, 
The  Always  are  the  Nevers. 

Sweetly  you  die,  apart, 

In  obscurity, 
Unwatched,  O  loving  heart, 

Without  futurity! 
Ah,  in  grief  that  naught  allays, 
The  Agains  are  the  Alreadys ! 


M 


,Y  room  looks  closely  on  a  railroad  shed  where 

trains 
Rumble  all  night   (my  nights  are  white)   with  noisy 

strains. 

Here  are  the  engines  fired  and  here  the  trains  made  up ; 
And  truly  'tis  a  noise  like  that  when  birds  wake  up, 
Thrown  on  the  skies  of  bronze,  and  glass,  and  oil,  and 

grease. 
Such  warblings  one  could  hardly  guess — they  never 

cease. 


170  Paul  Verlame 

One  might  well  say  'twas  like  awaking  birds  that  try 

An  early  flight  against  the  violet  tinted  sky, 

And  with  the  daylight  scarcely  yet  begun  to  dawn. 

O  these  trains  that  speed  like  torrents,  thundering  on ! 


VI 

IMPROBABLE,  BUT  TRUE 

.L /A!    I  am  in  the  Index,  and  in  the  dedications 

Here  I  am  Paul  V.  ...  pure  and  simple.  The  audacity 

Of  my  friends  (for  publishers  are  of  the  saints) 

Is  great,  and  they  should  ban  me  from  their  catalogues. 

Extraordinary  and  saponaceous  thunder 

Of  an  excommunication  that  I  venerate 

To  the  point  of  making  any  quantity  of  faults ! 

However,  if  I  were  not  (forcibly)  prevented, 

I  would  love,  seeing  how  contrary  I  am, 

This  modesty,  so  rare,  in  all  the  world  of  books. 


VII 
THE  LAST  TEN 


B 


ELGIUM,  that  gave  to  me  this  leisure  without  ease, 
Thanks !    Here  at  least  I  can  reflect  and  seize 
In  the  silence  of  these  cells,  calm  and  white, 
The  reasons,  that,  like  insects,  take  their  flight 
Above  the  boastful  reeds  of  a  vain  world ; 
Reasons  of  my  eternal  self,  divine; 
And  I  can  ticket  all  (so  dearly  bought) 
In  the  fine  crystal  cases  of  my  thought. 
But,  O  Belgium,  this  stubborn  prison  door, 
Open  at  last — enough,  why  punish  more? 

Brussels,  Aug.,  1873. 

Mons,  Jan.,  1875. 


Parallelly  171 

MOONS 


I 


WISH,  that  I  may  kill  you,  O  time  that  lays  me 

waste, 

To  live  again  the  days  when  my  heart's  love  was  chaste. 
To  lull  my  luxury  and  shame  to  the  sweet  notes 
Of  kisses  on  Her  hand,  and  not  upon  Their  throats. 
The  vile  Tiberias  I  am  to-day,  may  keep 
Me  hour  by  hour,  and  though  I  laugh  or  though  I  weep, 
Ah,  may  he  sleep !  to  dream  far  from  a  cruel  joy 
Of  those  pale  budding  maids,  honored  without  alloy 
In  moonlit  fetes,  after  the  green  sward  dance  so  light, 
When  from  the  steeple  strikes  the  middle  hour  of  night. 


II 

AFTER  THE  MANNER  OF  PAUL  VERLAINE 


T, 


HE  moon's  to  blame  for  what  is  done 
When  I  assume  the  mask  nocturne ; 
And  Saturn  who  inclines  her  urn, 
And  her  pale  moons,  one  after  one. 

Romances  without  words !    How  rare 
The  charm  of  their  expressed  discord! 
False  and  insipid  word  for  word, 
And  yet  what  sound  and  thrill  is  there ! 

'Tis  not  through  lack  of  pardonings 
For  those  who  wound  your  sense  of  truth; 
Myself  I  pardon,  'tis  my  youth 
Embellishing  some  foolish  things. 


172  Paul  Verlaine 

And  I  absolve  these  lies  from  harm, 
'Tis  they  that  bring  a  banal  joy, 
Since  these  sad  leisures  I  employ 
Inoculate  me  with  their  charm. 


Ill 
EXPLANATION 

Je  vous  dis  que  ce  n'est  pas  ce  que  I' on  pensa. 

P.V. 

T 

J.  HE  happiness  to  bleed  upon  a  true  friend's  heart, 
The  need  to  weep  upon  his  breast  these  tears  of  mine, 
The  sweet  desire  to  speak  to  him,  low  and  apart, 
The  dream  to  be  with  him  alone,  without  design. 

The  grief  at  having  such  good  enemies,  in  swarms. 
The  deep  disgust  at  being  an  obscene  machine. 
The  horror  of  mad  cries,  impure,  from  demon  forms. 
The  nightmare  of  a  never  ending  stormy  scene. 

To  give  one's  life  to  God  or  to  one's  native  land. 
Or  to  the  other,  whom  you  love — kissing  the  hand 
That  ne'er  betrayed — kissing  the  mouth  that  never  lies. 

To  live  far  from  all  tasks,  from  saintly  torments  fly 
For  the  clear  breasts  of  women  with  the  shining  eye — 
And  for  the  .  .  .  rest!  toward  what  deaths  full  of 
infamies ! 


THE  LAST  FETE  GALLANT 


O 


NCE  for  all,  separate — let  us  be  fleet, 
Dear  gentlemen,  and  you,  most  dear  mesdames. 
Enough  of  marriage  songs  with  loud  acclaims, 
And  then,  besides,  our  joys  were  cloying  sweet. 


Parallelly  173 

No  remorse,  no  sighs — let's  break  the  spell. 
'Tis  frightful  we  had  ever  felt  such  deep 
Affection  for  those  poor  deluded  sheep, 

Beribboned  with  the  worst  of  doggerel. 

? 

A  trifle  foolish,  also,  in  our  flight, 
With  our  grand  airs  of  barely  touching  earth. 
The  god  of  love  wills  we  should  have  no  dearth 
Of  breath.    He  is  a  young  god — also  right. 

Let's  part,  I  say,  and  without  sorrow. 

But  O,  that  hearts  once  pure  and  gaily  beating, 

Today  should  be  so  noisily  entreating 

That  we  set  sail  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah ! 


POEM  SATURNINE 


I 


T  was  bizarre  and  Satan  ought  to  laugh. 
This  summer  day  had  made  me  drunk  and  rude. 
What  foolish  singer  this,  with  all  her  chaff, 
And  the  disgusting  things  that  she  has  spewed ! 

And  this  piano  set  in  too  much  smoke, 
Beneath  the  swinging  lamp  with  red  flame,  blurred; 
It  seemed — my  ever  growing  anger  spoke — 
It  seemed  as  though  to  mock  my  very  word. 

I  think — my  senses  being  all  awry — 
My  bile  seethed  like  fermenting  wine  in  casks. 
Oh !  The  cafe  concerts  and  refrains  that  fly, 
Made  false  by  heavy  plaster  of  the  masks. 

In  this  vile  hamlet  where  I  wandered  late, 
Sucking  with  relish  some  refreshing  ice, 
Three  rowdies  with  their  eyes  degenerate 
Ogled  continually  at  my  grimace. 


174  Paul  Ferlaine 

That  I  was  hooted  at  was  very  plain 
By  those  young  toughs  near  where  one  takes  the  car; 
And  the  abuse  I  threw  them,  though  in  vain, 
Was  such  I  nearly  choked  on  my  cigar. 

Now  I  return:    I  hear  a  voice — the  light 
Step  of  a  ghost.    Someone,  or  no  one  near? 
Yet,  surely  someone  passed. — Ah,  what  a  night ! 
The  hour  of  droll  awakening  soundeth  clear. 

Attigny  (Ardennes).    May  31,  July  i,  1885. 


THE  IMPUDENT 

T 

JL  HE  evil  eye  and  miseries  wide, 
Said  with  no  thought  to  slander, 
Have  given  to  this  fiend  of  pride 
The  soul  of  an  old  prisoner. 

Yes,  jettatore,  sad  wanderer, 
The  first  and  last  of  them  that  sigh, 
You  dwell  in  the  black  shadows  where 
Men  will  pursue  you  till  you  die. 

The  children  ripen  at  your  look. 
Refusals  many  must  you  brook. 
Since,  impudent,  your  ways  annoy. 

Beauties  that  pass,  your  smiling  elves, 
Throw  not  your  coins  to  this  bad  boy, 
But  give,  instead  of  alms — yourselves. 


Parallelly  175 


THE  IMPENITENT 


O 


'LD  rover  worn  and  weary  eyed, 
With  hellish  lust  unsatisfied, 
Whose  faded  orbs  grow  clear  and  bright 
When  some  fair  woman  passes  by 
And,  like  a  window,  throws  a  light. 

Your  senses  waken,  subtle,  high; 

Stamen  and  pistil,  too,  reply; 

She  is  all  flower,  all  fruit,  all  food. 

And  from  your  mouth  your  tongue  extends 

To  lick  your  lips  so  hungry-rude. 

Old  fractious  faun  that  rears  and  bends, 
Are  you  not  done  ? — what  further  ends 
Can  serve  your  lust  the  filthy  host? 
Old  fool,  have  you  not  had  your  due, 
And  is  it  nothing,  this  you  boast? 

In  spite  of  dainties  lost  to  view, 

Your  heart  grown  icy  through  and  through; 

Gnawing,  as  though  a  luxury, 

Your  heart,  your  loins,  your  very  spleen — 

Your  vitals  wheresoe'er  they  be. 

Sugared  and  sweet,  of  honeyed  mien, 
Damning  like  fire  from  heaven  seen; 
Powder-black,  or  blue  as  a  flower, 
Your  passioned  gaze  seeks  every  eye, 
And  this  in  spite  of  heaven's  Power. 

The  noses  please  you  that  pass  by, 
Gracious  or  saucy  ones  awry; 
On  women,  as  on  men,  they  place 
The  indications  that  they  bear, 
And  give  the  force  to  every  face. 


176  Paul  Verlaine 

Long  kisses  clear  as  songs  are  clear, 
Astringent  kisses  small  and  dear 
That  seem  to  suck  the  souls  they  frame. 
The  good,  fat  kisses  of  a  child, 
And  dancing  kisses,  like  a  flame. 

Kisses  hungry,  and  kisses  wild, 
Kisses  drunken,   for  mouths  defiled, 
Kisses  languid  and  ferocious: 
These  the  best  loved,  notwithstanding, 
Are  they  not?  fair  mouths  atrocious ! 

Bodies,  too,  your  taste  demanding, 
Better  in  repose  than  standing; 
Their  charms  displaying  as  they  march, 
Of  no  importance  where  they  stroll, 
Bridge  Holy  Spirit  or  the  Arch. 

But  this  that  you  demand  of  all, 
Large,  small,  of  aspect  bright  or  dull, 
Is  this :  they  must  at  least  be  young 
With  fine  strong  feet  and  arms  as  light 
As  muscular,  and  tresses  hung 

Like  this :  long,  curly,  or  cut  quite 
Short — otherwise  perverse.     In  spite 
Of  which,  at  least,  there  needs  must  be 
Some  saving  touch  of  innocence — 
Some  show,  at  least,  of  decency. 

Nay,  nay,  be  witness  and  defence, 

Ye  gods  who  know  her  fire  intense; 

That  all  her  manner,  all  her  art, 

Can  sound  the  depth  where  pleasures  flow, 

With  useless  trifles  put  apart. 

And  it  is  thus  that  morals  go, 

And  meet  that  scoffers  have  some  show. 


Parallelly  177 

But  you, — you  laugh  to  see  it  all, 

As  some  one,  being  more  than  pressed, 

Passes  beyond  forbidden  wall. 

And,  somewhat  weary  and  distressed, 

At  being  forced  to  thus  protest, 

You  raise  a  drink-degraded  voice — 

But  not  a  ninny's  voice — and  say : 

"What  matter?    Comrade,  we've  no  choice 

If  we  be  creatures  of  such  clay!" 


BALLAD  OF  THE  LIFE  IN  RED 


T 


O  one  who  sees  the  rosy  way, 
Youth  unsatisfied  as  yet, 
Or  second  childhood  not  less  gay, 
No  vows  or  superfluous  regret; 
Ignoring  all  that  the  times  beget 
The  sage  sits  dull  where  joys  hold  sway — 
Instinctively — like  a  phallus  set. — 
But  I  see  life  in  its  red  array. 

The  wise  one  reasons  and  notes  alway 
The  changing  modes  that  the  day  beset; 
Scanning  all  things  and  seeking  to  weigh 
Life  in  his  rough  hands  hard  as  jet; 
Time  and  more  it  were  need  to  get 
One  like  this  from  his  nook  to  stray; 
The  world  is  gray  by  this  recluse  met. — 
But  I  see  life  in  its  red  array. 

He,  this  other,  about  him  may 
Throw  his  regards,  well  meant,  but  let 
Only  his  eye  for  a  moment  stay, 
And  the  world  is  a  thing  of  vain  regret — 


178  Paul  Verlame 

To  the  puffed  eye  of  philanthropy; 
All  seems  black  to  him,  maid  or  grisette, 
Men,  or  wine,  or  books  of  the  day. — 
But  I  see  life  in  its  red  array. 

ENVOI 

Prince  or  princesses  go,  I  pray, 
In  triumph  down  the  road  where  I 
Plod  in  the  ruts  of  the  roadside  clay. — 
But  I  see  life  in  its  red  array. 


T 


HANDS 


__  HESE  are  not  the  hands  of  a  churchman, 
Some  elegant  prelate  less  saintly  than  fine; 
And  yet  they  seem  to  wear  the  same  distinction 
Imprinted  here  succinctly  line  on  line. 

And  these  are  not  the  hands  of  an  artist, 
Some  lonely  poet,  let  us  say,  obscure ; 
But  something  as  sad — perhaps  the  saddest, 
Resembling  a  group  in  miniature. 

These  hands  have  their  character  and  souls, 
They  are  a  world  in  movement,  so  it  seems; 
The  thumb  and  little  finger  are  the  poles 
Between  which  flow  the  strange  magnetic  streams. 

The  meteors  that  shoot  across  the  brain, 
Quite  like  those  tempests  that  o'errun  the  heart, 
Are  here  repeated  with  a  logic  plain, 
And  mirrored  with  a  consummating  art. 

Nor  is  there  here  the  worthy  rural  palm, 
Of  those  who  dwell  beyond  the  cities'  show; 
Theirs  are  the  deep  drawn  lines,  how  calm ! 
That  seem  to  say:  "Toil,  that  ye  nothing  owe." 


Parallelly  179 

They  are  meager;  they  are  long;  they  are  gray — 
The  knuckles  are  quite  large ;  the  nails  are  square — 
Like  hands  the  windows  of  a  church  display 

Where  saints  beneath  the  golden  branches  fare. 
rbliw  tjflj  ^oTi&fS  son  fe   £lB  I 

Or  like  some  old  decrepit  soldiers',  met 
In  after  years  with  all  their  struggles  o'er; 
Recalling  their  long  battles,  fields  blood-wet, 
In  summer  twilight  by  some  tavern  door. 

They  have  tonight,  these  hands  so  strangely  dry, 
Beneath  the  scanty  hair  the  years  have  wrought, 
A  rougher  aspect  to  the  touch  and  eye, 
As  though  in  prey  to  some  sad  afterthought. 

The  cruel  care  that  holds  them  in  embrace, 
Their  bitter  half-dream  seems  as  though  to  mar, 
And  wrings  from  them  a  sinister  grimace 
In  their  peculiar  way,  hands  that  they  are. 

.Lff  1-3W    ?i!*j:XLf;    5vS    rfj.vV 

I  fear  to  see  them  lying,  still  as  time, 

Here  on  my  table,  underneath  my  eyes, 

As  though  premeditating  some  black  crime — 

Some  mad,  some  furious  deed  of  monstrous  guise. 

The  right  hand  at  my  right — left  at  my  left — 
I  am  alone,  sitting  with  forehead  bowed; 
While  slowly  in  my  chamber,  so  bereft, 
The  linen  takes  the  aspect  of  a  shroud. 


Unceasing  howls  the  wind.    With  one  last  gleam 
The  twilight  dies  across  my  window  shutter. 
These  hands!    If  they  should  be  some  ghastly  dream! 
So  much  the  better  then — or  worse — or  better ! 


180  Paul  Verlaine 

PIERROT  GAMIN 

T 

J.  HIS  is  not  Pierrot,  the  wild, 
Any  more  than  Pierrot,  the  child. 
This  is  Pierrot,  Pierrot,  Pierrot. 
Pierrot  gamin,  Pierrot  gay, 
Fresh  as  a  green  nut,  fresh  as  May, 
This  is  Pierrot,  Pierrot,  Pierrot ! 

In  stature  scarce  a  meter  tall, 
No  task  to  fetter,  like  a  doll, 
In  his  eyes  the  flash  of  steel 
Suited  to  the  cunning  deil. — 
To  his  malice  infinite — 
Grimacer,  yet  poet  quite. 

Lips  red  as  a  wound  is  red, 
With  evil  luxuries  well  fed. 
Face  pale,  mouth  mocking — fine; 
Long,  accentuated — in  each  line 
The  tell-tale  thought  that  clings 
And  contemplates  all  things. 

Body  slender  and  yet  not  thin. 
Voice  not  shrill  (to  a  girl's  akin). 
Adolescence  that  tarries  late. 
Voice  to  command,  body  en  fete. 
Charming  creature  ready  quite 
To  satisfy  each  appetite. 

Go,  brother,  comrade,  go  ! 
Play  the  devil  high  and  low. 
Take  of  Paris  every  toll. 
Roam  the  world  and  be  the  soul, 
Noble,  high,  with  vile  intent, 
Of  our  spirits  innocent. 


Parallelly  1 8 1 

Grow,  for  such  the  way  of  life. 
Increase  your  bitterness  with  strife. 
Exaggerate  your  gaiety — 
Character — aureole — to  satiety. 
The  grimace  is  the  symbol 
Of  our  simplicity ! 


CAPRICE 


O 


POET,  falsely  rich  and  poor,  true  man, 
To  the  exterior  rich  and  poor,  such  is  the  plan. 
( Concerning  gold,  how  can  one  truly  know  your  heart  ?) 
Turn  by  turn  you're  facile,  droll,  and  sumptuous. 
From  hopeful  "green"  to  a  sad  black  compunctious. 
Your  garb  is  always  slack  in  some  essential  part. 

A  button  fails.    A  thread's  awry.    Whence  come 
These  spots — ah,  these1 — sadly  come  or  welcome? — 
That  laugh  and  weep  upon  the  stuff  one  wears. 
Tie  knotted  well  or  ill;  shoes  bright  or  terne. 
Briefly,  a  type  to  hang  out  at  the  Vieille-Lanterne, 
Or  gaily  wander  underneath  the  stars. 

Pshaw !    A  tramp  ?  but  hardly  that — true  man,  the  only 

true. 

A  poet !    Yet,  if  your  language  is  not  true 
You  are,  at  least;  and  as  for  language!  well,  'tis  bad 
For  those  who  love  you  not,  for  fools  who  hold  aloof; 
The  moon  will  warm  the  one  who  has  no  roof, 
And  death  will  lull  the  hearts  forever  sad. 

Poor  hearts  that  fall  so  low,  too  proud  and  good; 

The  irony  your  lips  have  understood. 

With  all  your  wounds,  hearts  wounded  day  by  day, — 

Little  sacred  hearts  of  Jesus  most  lamentable ! — 

Go,  poet,  go,  and  seek,  if  possible, 

To  keep  from  starving — if  indeed  you  may. 


HAPPINESS 
(BONHEUR) 


VI 

OO  very  old  already, 
Dreams  and  memories  glad, 
Sweet  magic  of  the  future, 
Alas,  how  drear  and  sad: 

A  girl,  almost  a  child, 
Lisping  a  little,  too; 
That  you  surprised  in  dreaming, 
Loving  her  dressed  in  blue. 

Her  hands  you  kissed  so  often, 
Her  mouth  and  shining  hair; 
This  was  the  age  triumphant, 
Without  design  or  care. 

Then  came  the  sad  estrangement 
With  bitter  words  and  breath; 
For  one  this  was  the  passing, 
And  for  the  other — death. 

O  wake  for  her,  sweet  Saviour, 
When  her  last  hour  shall  be, 
So  that  her  soul,  my  sister, 
Shall  live  eternally. 


X 

F  ANTASTIC  "chance"  that  wrecked  me,  without 

sense  or  rhyme, 

Has  made  of  me  a  lodger  for  a  certain  time — 
And  this  the  last,  I  think — here  in  the  hospital. 
This  truth  that  dawns  on  me  is  very  brutal, 

[x85l 


1 86  Paul  Ferlaine 

Explainable,  however,  by  a  robbery  sad — 

(Of  which  the  history,  'tis  said,  is  truly  bad.) 

That  I've  the  rheumatism  is  a  mere  detail, 

And,  though  I  have  to  shelter  here,  why  should  I  rail. 

I'm  here — live  here.    Some  say  I  "vegetate."    So  be! 

They  are  deceived.    Through  life's  strict  ways  I  come 

to  see 

Some  needful  bread,  not  too  much  wine,  a  better  bed. 
I  expiate  some  ancient  sin,  'twere  better  said. 
(Very  ancient?)  My  blood  oft  felt  this  sudden  heat! 
And,  relatively  speaking,  penance  is  so  sweet 
In  martyrology  and  things  armorial 
Of  poets — perhaps  it  is  proverbial ! 
Like  any  place,  here  one  may  rest  in  peaceful  mood, 
Be  a  good  child  of  prison — a  benign  Latude, 

Not  counting  some  poor  simple  rhymer,  so  to  speak, 

Who  faces  death  from  starving,  being  all  too  weak 

In  these  sad  times  when  life  is  rough,  hard  and  unkind. 

To  die — to  die !    O  loving  Muse  to  me  inclined, 

To  die  in  this  sad  place  is  better  far  I  hold — 

Unless,  that  here  one  is  a  "layman"  and  the  old 

Abuses  are  reformed — the  "citizen"  made  free 

And  strong.    In  fact,  he  must,  else  the  stability 

Of  Government  be  lost,  with  this,  that  most  alarms, 

Since  he  is  not  on  horseback  on  a  coat  of  arms. 

To  die,  then,  in  the  sheltering  arms  Municipal, 

A  thought  that  at  its  best  is  hardly  cheerful. 

Yet,  haunted  by  this  thought,  I  own  my  shameful  role, 

'Tis  well,  they  ought  to  treat  me  like  a  blatant  fool. 

The  conversation  in  this  modest  resting  place 

Is  not  so  difficult  or  void  of  social  grace. 

These  good  folk  that  the  Journal  renders  quite  inane, 

Conserve,  in  spite  of  all  attacks  and  fierce  disdain 

That  the  Instruction  hurls  at  each  hard  stubborn  head, 

Some  knowledge  of  the  times  and  what  is  being  said. 


Happiness  187 

The  Revolution  that  'tis  always  well  to  cite 
And  also  to  condemn,  has  not  extinguished  quite 
Their  lively  spirits,  that  are  none  the  less  sincere ; 
And  I  prefer  them  to  the  numbskulls  of  my  sphere, — 
Truly !  and  I  can  stand  the  shock  and  let  things  be — 
Their  vice  and  virtue  are  indifferent  to  me. 

Lacking  only  Christian  hope — this  is  a  convent. 
I  need  for  nothing  here — in  fact  I'm  well  content. 
And  here  would  I  remain,  my  faith !    All  of  my  life ; 
And  without  jealousy,  I  hope,  and  without  strife, 
If,  when  I'm  cured,  indeed,  if  such  I  am,  it  be 
That  God  has  not  some  other  labor  set  for  me. 


Y. 


XXV 

To  Monsieur  Barely. 


OU  ask  of  me  some  verses  on  "Amour," 
My  book  of  sad  emotions  and  distress, 
Far  distant  now  in  my  strange  Songs,  that  press 
And  fall,  a  flood  more  bitter  every  hour. 

What  say,  unless  "Poor  Yorick!"  better,  "Poor 
Lelian!"  poor  soul,  so  full  of  feebleness, 
Grown  soft  by  time,  caress,  and  laziness; 
Or,  taken  with  a  sudden  stroke  to  war 

On  all  his  past,  so  pure,  without  a  stain; 

Well  ordered  by  calm  thought  of  good  intent; 

To  damn  them  all,  those  hours  with  God  well  spent. 

Then  it  returns,  my  Work,  worn  by  the  strain, 
And  kneels  in  penance,  asking  to  be  blessed.  .  .  . 
Pray  with  and  for  the  bard — the  Poor  Lelian. 


1 88  Paul  Verlaine 


XXXI 


I 


MMEDIATELY  after  the  sumptuous  Salutaris, 
With  all  the  lights  put  out,  save  a  few  flickering  candles, 
The  psalms  for  the  dead  are  sung  in  minor  tones 
By  the  clerks  and  by  the  people,  seized  with  melancholy. 

With  solemn  knell  the  bells  of  the  cathedral 
Are  answered  from  the  towers  of  all  the  diocese, 
Hovering  and  weeping  o'er  the  towns  and  the  country, 
In  the  night,  so  early  come,  of  the  long  delayed  autumn. 

Each  goes  to  rest,  led  by  the  doleful  voices 
So  infinitely  sweet  of  the  memorial  bronze, 
That  lulls  the  sleep,  a  little  sad,  of  those  yet  living, 
With  memories  of  the  dead  of  all  the  parishes. 


SONGS  FOR  HER 
(CHANSONS  POUR  ELLE) 


FANTASTIC? 


II 


V^OMPANION,  savory  and  good, 
To  whom  I  have  bestowed  the  care 
Of  my  old  days,  e'en  as  I  should; 
Who  is  my  last  sole  witness  here ; 
Come,  my  beloved,  that  I  may  kiss, 
Embrace  you  long,  to  take  your  breath. 
My  heart  near  yours  beats  full  of  bliss 
With  that  strong  love  that  lasts  till  death. 

So  love  me  true, 

For  without  you, 

I  nothing  am, 

And  nothing  can ! 

Poor  as  a  church  mouse,  I,  and  yet 
You  had  ten  fingers,  and  no  more ; 
Our  table  was  too  often  set 
In  basement  or  in  garret  poor; 
Yet  never  failed  our  bed  to  ring 
With  joyous  sounds  in  lieu  of  wealth; 
And  it  was  I  was  always  king 
Of  all  your  gaiety  and  health ! 

So  love  me  true, 

For  without  you, 

I  nothing  am, 

And  nothing  can ! 

After  our  nights  of  love,  robust, 
I  come  forth  strengthened  and  relieved; 
For  your  caress  is  rich  and  just, 
And  this,  my  flesh,  is  not  deceived. 
Your  love  makes  valiant  every  part 
Of  my  poor  being  like  a  wine ; 


192  Paul  Verlaine 

Alone,  you  only  have  the  art, 
To  puft  me  up  a  heart  divine. 

So  love  me  true, 

For  without  you, 

I  nothing  am, 

And  nothing  can  1 

Of  what  import  your  past,  my  belle, 
Of  what  import,  parbleu!  my  own; 
For  I  shall  always  love  you  well, 
And  you  shall  love  but  me  alone. 
In  our  two  miseries  let's  unite 
The  pardon  that  the  world  withholds. 
So  let's  embrace,  O  hold  me  tight ! — 
And  fie  upon  the  world  that  scolds. 

So  love  me  true, 

For  without  you, 

I  nothing  am, 

And  nothing  can ! 


XIII 


B 


BRUNETTE,  or  blonde? 
Black,  or  like  the  skies, 

Your  eyes? 

I  do  not  know,  and  yet  I  love  their  depths  profound, 
And  I  adore  your  hair,  that  in  disorder  flies. 

Mild,  or  severe? 

Wise,  or  with  a  mocking  art, 

Your  heart? 

I  do  not  know,  and  yet  give  thanks  to  nature  dear, 
That  made  your  heart  my  master — vanquished  every 
part. 


Songs  for  Her  193 

Faithful,  untrue? 

Of  no  import  it  shall  be 

To  me, 

If,  always  well  disposed  to  give  my  love  its  due, 
Your  beauty  serve  the  pledge  of  my  desire  for  you. 


Y. 


XX 


OU  trust  the  signs  of  the  coffee  grounds, 
Believe  in  omens  and  games  of  surprise — 
But  I — I  only  believe  in  your  eyes. 

Your  faith  in  fairy  tales  has  no  bounds; 
You  believe  in  days  that  are  lucky,  and  dreams — 
But  I — I  believe  in  your  lies,  so  it  seems. 

You  believe  in  some  vague  Being,  too; 
In  some  special  saint  that  works  as  a  charm, 
And  in  all  the  Aves,  that  keep  you  from  harm. 

I  only  believe  in  the  hours  blue 
And  pink  on  which  you  shed  delights 
In  the  voluptuousness  of  my  white  nights. 

And  so  firm  is  my  faith  in  its  view 
Toward  all  these  things  I  hold  to  be  true, 
That  I  see  nothing  else  in  this  world  but  you. 


I 


XXIII 


'VE  had  no  luck  with  womankind, 
And,  since  I've  grown  to  man's  estate, 
It  always  seems  to  be  my  fate 
To  pick  the  worst  that  one  can  find. 


194  Paul  Verlaine 

I'm  schooled  in  things  that  bring  a  curse. 
Revolting,  also,  in  a  way, 
As  bad  as  any  man  today — 
Perhaps,  by  chance,  I'm  even — worse. 

My  women  have  been  light,  'tis  clear. 
That  you  are  not  a  saint  is  plain. 
This  frank  avowal  gives  me  pain, 
Said  thus  between  us,  O  my  dear! 

'Tis  true  I  once  was  quite  a  rake. 
And  true,  perhaps,  that  I  am  yet. 
Dishonored  thus,  can  I  forget? 
My  thirst  for  horrors  naught  can  slake. 

Bah,  let  us  never  cease  to  be 
Warm  lovers,  Mignon,  for  we  can — 
You  a  good  girl — I,  virtuous  man — 
Since  I  love  you  and  you  love  me ! 


O 


XXV 


NCE  I  was  mystic,  but  it  could  not  last. 
(For  Woman  binds  me  with  a  strand  of  hair.) 
And  yet  I  have  respect  for  what  is  past, 
For  the  ideal  that  I  now  forswear. 

Yes,  Woman  binds  me  with  a  silken  hair! 

In  youth  I  sent  my  daily  prayer  to  God. 
(Today  'tis  you  who  have  me  on  my  knees.) 
And  I  was  full  of  faith  and  of  white  hope, 
Of  charity  whose  pure  fire  kissed  the  breeze. 

Today  'tis  you  who  have  me  on  my  knees ! 


Songs  for  Her  195 

Woman,  the  Master,  rules  through  you  today. 
Rules  with  a  force  that  makes  the  strongest  bend. 
But  O,  the  treacherous,  who  still  must  sway, 
And  feign  all  things  simply  to  gain  her  end. 

To  mystic  days  long  gone  this  lay  I  send! 


ODES  IN  HER  HONOR 
(ODES  EN  SON  HONNEUR) 


VV  HEN  peacefully 
I  talk  with  you — 
This  is  truly  charming — 
Then  peacefully 
You  talk  with  me. 

When  I  dispute 

And  foolishly  reproach  you, 

Then  you  dispute — 

Ah,  this  is  droll  1 

And  sharply  you  reproach  me. 

If  it  happens 
I  deceive  you, 

0  misery, 

You  run  the  town, 

And  gaily  you  deceive  me. 

If  I  am  true 

For  any  length  of  time, 

You  stay  with  me, 

Remaining  true 

For  just  that  length  of  time. 

If  happy 

1  should  chance  to  be, 
You  are  twice  as  happy, 
And  I  am  glad 

To  see  you  also  happy. 

Do  I  weep, 

You  weep  with  me. 

Am  I  in  need, 


2OO  Paul  Verlaine 

How  gaily 

You  hasten  to  my  side. 

Am  I  faint 
You  too  are  faint, 
And  I  am  more 
In  seeing  you 
So  fainting. 

Ah,  when  I  die 
Will  you  die,  too? 
"As  I  love  you 
The  most  I,  too, 
Will  surely  die." 

.  .  .  And  I  awake 
From  all  these  musings. 
Alas!    Was  this  a  dream? 
(A  dream,  or  what?) 
These  musings. 


T, 


XIX 


HEY  tell  me,  Sweet,  you  are  untrue, 
What  matter,  should  I  be  dismayed? 
You  could  not  break,  dear  one — not  you — 
An  oath  that  you  had  never  made. 

They  tell  me  that  you  are  unkind 
Toward  me — I  who  sometimes  am  rude. 
Unkind?    Far  better,  could  they  find 
A  tune  more  suited  to  your  mood. 

Unkind?    And  yet  you  always  offer, 
Dear  one,  a  sweet,  amusing  smile ; 
My  queen,  from  whose  resplendent  coffer 
I  draw  rich  treasures,  worth  the  while. 


Odes  in  Her  Honor  201 

They  say,  and  they  think  well  to  say, 
They  say  you  do  not  love  me,  dear. 
Why  care — I  have  your  smile  each  day, 
And  I  am  happy  when  you're  near. 

You  love  me  not,  and  yet  the  grace 
And  the  whole  force  of  pride  and  duty, 
You  give  to  me,  O  fair  of  face, 
O  you  voluptuous  beauty ! 

You  love  me  not?    O  well,  if  true, 
It  little  matters,  does  it  not? 
"If  you  don't  love  me,  I  love  you" 
But  say,  you  love  me,  do  you  not? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Cazals,  F.  A.  et  Gustave  Le  Rouge.  LES  DERNIERS 
JOURS  DE  PAUL  VERLAINE.  Paris.  Mercure  de  France. 
1911. 

Turquet-M lines.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  BAUDELAIRE. 
London.  Constable  &  Co.  1903. 

Lepelletier,  Edm.  PAUL  VERLAINE.  SA  VIE.  SON 
OEUVRE.  Paris.  Societe  du  Mercure  de  France.  1907. 

Donos,  Ch.  (Ch.  de  Martrin)  VERLAINE  INTIME. 
Paris.  Vanier.  1898. 

Huysmans,  Joris  Karl.  A  REBOURS.  Paris.  Char- 
pentier.  1884. 

Huret,  J.  ENQUETE  SUR  L'EVOLUTION  LITTERAIRE. 
Paris.  Charpentier.  1891. 

De  Gourmont,  R.  LE  LIVRE  DES  MASQUES.  Paris. 
Societe  du  Mercure  de  France.  1896. 

Symons,  Arthur.  THE  SYMBOLIST  MOVEMENT  IN 
LITERATURE.  London.  Heinemann.  1899. 

Lombroso,  Cesare.  THE  MAN  OF  GENIUS.  Lon- 
don. Scott.  1891. 

Lemaitre,  Jules.  LES  CONTEMPORAINS.  (Vol.  IV) 
Paris.  Societe  Franchise  D'Imprimerie  et  de  Librairie. 
1897. 

Moore,  Geo.  CONFESSIONS  OF  A  YOUNG  MAN. 
London.  Swan,  Sonnenchein,  Lowery.  1888. 

Moore,  Geo.  IMPRESSIONS  AND  OPINIONS.  Lon- 
don. Nutt.  1891. 

Eccles,  Francis  Yvon.  A  CENTURY  OF  FRENCH 
POETS.  London.  Constable  &  Co.  1909. 

Harris,  Frank.  CONTEMPORARY  PORTRAITS.  New 
York.  Kennerley.  1915. 

[203] 


2O4  Paul  Ferlaine 

Thompson,  Vance.  FRENCH  PORTRAITS.  Boston. 
Badger.  1900. 

Nordau,  Max.  DEGENERATION.  New  York.  Ap- 
pleton.  !8o5. 

Doumic,  Rene.  HOMMES  ET  IDEES  DU  XIX  SIECLE. 
Paris.  Perrin,  1903. 

Delille,  Edw.  SOME  FRENCH  WRITERS.  London. 
Chapman  &  Hall.  1893. 

Gosse,  Edm.  FRENCH  PROFILES.  London.  Heine- 
mann,  1905. 

Verlaine,  Paul.  CEuvRES  COMPLETES.  Paris.  Va- 
nier.  5  volumes,  1899-90. 

Tournoux,  Georges  A.  BIBLIOGRAPHIE  VERLAINI- 
ENNE.  Leipzic.  Rowohlt.  1912. 


NOTES 


NOTES 


Page  43.  To  Eugene  Carrier e.  The  source  of  this  poem 
is  to  be  found  in  Baudelaire's  Fleurs  du  Mai,  in  the  poem 
entitled:  "Epigraphe  pour  un  livre  condemne,"  according  to 
Ernest  Dupy,  in  his  Poetes  et  Critiques. 

Page  46.  Vow.  In  the  original  the  first  line  of  this  poem 
begins,  Ah !  les  oarystis.  .  .  .  There  is  no  exact  equivalent 
for  the  word  oarystis  in  English.  It  is  Greek  in  origin  and 
obsolete  in  French. 

Page  48.  My  Familiar  Dream.  The  original  reads  as  fol- 
lows in  the  eleventh  line:  "Comme  ceux  des  aimes  que  la  Vie 
exila."  Francis  Yvon  Eccles  says:  "Que  la  Vie  exila,  is  ob- 
scure. Were  the  beloved  banished  by  this  life  from  their  home 
in  heaven?  Or  were  they  simply  severed  by  its  vicissitudes 
from  their  ideal  loves?  Perhaps  this  is  only  an  instance  in 
which  the  poet  has  said  more  than  he  means,  and  seems  to  mean 
more  than  he  has  said." 

Page  49.  Parisian  Sketch.  This  poem  is  written  of  at 
length  by  Lemaitre  in  Vol.  IV,  Les  Contemporains,  and  held 
up  to  ridicule,  as  are  several  others,  notably  Twilight  of  Mystic 
Eve  and  To  Clymene. 

Page  50.  Effects  of  Night.  This  curious  and  picturesque 
study  reminds  one  of  Aloysius  Bertrand  and  his  fantastic  silhou- 
ettes in  Caspar  of  the  Night.  Beaudelaire  was  never  more 
effective  in  Fleurs  du  Mai.  It  is  interesting  to  note  a  change 
in  the  text  from  "deux  cent  vingtcinq  pertuisaniers"  in  Choix 
de  Poesies  to  "un  gros  de  hauts  pertuisaniers"  in  the  Oeuvres 
Completes. 

[207] 


2o8  Paul  Ferlaine 

Page  55.     Valpurgis  Night,  Classic.     The  line 

"This  is  rather  the  sabbat  of  the  second  Faust, 
than  the  other;" 

refers  to  the  second  part  of  Goethe's  Faust. 

Page  60.     Song  of  the  Ingenues. 

"The  Caussades  and  the  Richelieux, 
And  the  Knights  Faublas  all  pass," 

The  Caussades  and  the  Richelieux  were  gallant  partisans, 
and  Knights  Faublas  were  those  who  were  (temperamentally, 
at  least)  like  the  Chevalier  Faublas  in  Louvet  de  Coubray's 
romance,  Amours  du  Chevalier  Faublas,  an  eighteenth  century 
narrative  of  frivolous  life. 

Page  64.  A  Dahlia.  This  poem  seemed  to  have  pleased 
Sainte-Beuve,  who  mentioned  the  fact  in  a  letter  to  Verlaine 
in  1866.  Woman  and  Cat  and  Song  of  the  Ingenues  were 
likewise  praised  by  Banville,  according  to  Donos,  in  his  Ver- 
laine Intime. 

Page  65.  Nevermore.  Lepelletier  writes  of  this  poem  as 
follows:  "Doubtless  he  (Verlaine)  had  forewarnings  of  the 
future,  but  when  in  1865  he  wrote:  'Happiness  has  walked  side 
by  side  with  me,'  the  lines  charged  with  dispair  applied  to  no 
actual  fact  in  his  life;  as  yet  he  has  experienced  no  real 
troubles." 

Page  67.  Marco.  A  footnote  accompanying  this  poem  in 
the  first  edition  of  Poemes  Saturniens  reads:  "The  author 
acknowledges  that  the  rhythm  and  style  of  this  refrain  are 
borrowed  from  a  poem  in  the  collection  of  M.  J-T  de  Saint- 
Germain:  Les  Roses  de  Noel  (Mignon)." 

Page  71.  Pantomime.  Pierrot,  Clitander,  Columbine, 
Harlequin — how  immortal  these  creatures  of  fancy!  Born  in 
the  South,  when  the  world  was  younger  and  more  joyous,  they 
pirouette  through  Italian  comedy;  do  the  bidding  of  Moliere 
and  Shakespeare;  dance  in  the  canvases  of  the  XIII  century; 
and  the  age  of  cement  and  steel  has  not  wholly  extinguished 
their  joyous  laughter  and  merry  quips. 


Notes  209 

Page  78.  Fantastics.  This  poem  was  originally  printed  in 
the  first  edition  of  Jadis  et  Naguere.  As  it  obviously  belongs 
to  the  Fetes  Galantes,  it  is  incorporated  in  this  work  in  later 
editions.  Scaramouche  is  a  buffoon,  born  in  Italian  comedy. 
His  chief  role  is  that  of  receiving  kicks  and  cuffs.  Pulcenelli 
is  a  type  essentially  Italian  and  often  confounded  with  the 
French  Polichinelle. 

Page  83.  Indolents.  Ernest  Dupuy  writes:  "This  poem 
.  .  .  is  one  of  the  most  curious  in  the  collection  and  ar- 
ranged in  the  style  employed  by  Verlaine  at  this  time. 
The  little  piece  is  truly  pretty  .  .  .  Verlaine  has  trans- 
posed ...  a  half-dozen  verses  that  Shakespeare  (in 
Troilus  and  Cressida)  has  put  in  the  mouth  of  Pandarus  of 
Troy." 

Page  86.  Colloquy  Sentimental.  Dupy  writes  of  this  poem : 
"This  dialogue,  so  compact,  with  the  questions  and  answers 
interlaced  like  two  rapiers,  cold,  rigid  and  brilliant,  is  a  sum- 
mary of  the  bitter  reflections  of  Lysander.  To  the  tender  fears 
of  Hermia,  the  melancholy  lover  adds,  by  way  of  emphasis,  the 
couplets  formed  of  somber  presentiments." 

Page  96.  VIII.  A  Saint  in  her  bright  halo,  .  .  . 
This  is  a  poem  in  the  style  of  the  Fetes  Galantes  which  the 
poet,  inspired  by  a  genuine  passion,  has  fashioned  into  a  Bonne 
Chanson. 

Page  107.  Romances  Without  Words.  This  curious  title 
of  Verlaine's  third  book  of  poems  seems  to  have  been  suggested 
by  Mendelssohn's  Songs  Without  Words. 

Page  109.  I.  This  is  the  langorous  ecstasy,  .  .  .  Tol- 
stoy in  his  essay,  What  is  Art,  quotes  this  poem  entire  as  an 
example  of  what  he  calls  Verlaine's  affected  and  unintelligible 
style,  asking  what  it  all  means — particularly  the  expression, 
"cri  doux  que  1'herbe  agitee  expire." 

Page  109.  II.  /  vaguely  guess,  across  a  murmur  drawn 
.  .  .  This  poem,  nearly  meaningless  in  the  original,  and 


2io  Paul  Ferlaine 

entirely  so  in  the  translation,  is  inserted  as  an  example  of 
Verlaine  at  his  worst.  A  poem  evidently  dictated  by  the  Green 
Fairy. 

Page  in.  VI.  Behold  the  dog  of  Jean  Nivelle  .  .  . 
In  French  folk  lore  the  dog  of  Jean  de  Nivelle  was  always 
running  away  when  most  wanted.  Unlike  Jean's  dog  the 
Mere  Michel's  cat  was  always  coming  back — to  the  sorrow  of 
Pere  Lustucru.  The  old  French  song  concerning  this  famous 
cat  begins  as  follows: 

"C'est  la  mere  Michel  qui  a  perdu  son  chat, 
Qui  cri'  par  la  fenetr  qui  est-c'  qui  lui  rendra, 
Et  1'  comper'  Lustucru  qui  lui  a  respondu: 
"Allez,  la  mer'  Michel,  votre  chat  n'est  pas  perdu." 

The  poem  is  more  or  less  meaningless  to  one  unacquainted 
with  French  nursery  rhymes. 

Page  115.  Charleroi.  Kobolds  are  fabulous  spirits  of  the 
mines.  Charleroi,  being  a  mining  town  in  Belgium,  the  refer- 
ence is  obvious. 

Page  119.  M alines.  There  are  two  renderings  of  the 
fifteenth  line  of  this  poem  in  the  original  French.  In  Choix 
de  Poesies  the  line  reads:  "Sous  vos  yeux  a  peine  irises!" 
In  Ouevres  Completes  the  word  "yeux"  is  substituted  for  that 
of  "cieux." 

Page  126.  X.  No!  'Twos  Gallidan — Jansenist —  .  .  . 
The  last  line  of  this  poem  is  as  follows: 

Sur  tes  ailes  de  pierre,  6  folle  Cathedrale! 

The  meaning  of  the  adjective  "folle"  in  this  connection  is 
exceedingly  obscure.  Why  foolish  Cathedral?  There  is  also 
the  French  word  "folle,"  meaning  a  net  with  large  meshes. 

Page  128.  III.  Hope  shines  as  doth  a  wisp  of  straw. 
.  .  .  For  a  ludicrous  analysis  of  this  curiously  mystical  poem 
the  reader  is  referred  to  Lemaitre,  Contemporains,  Vol.  IV. 


Notes  211 

Page  130.  VI.  The  sky  is  just  beyond  the  roof,  .  .  . 
Of  this  beautiful  poem,  composed  in  prison,  Verlaine  writes  in 
his  book  Mes  Prisons:  "Above  the  wall  before  my  window 
(I  had  a  window  .  .  .)  I  could  see  the  topmost  boughs  of 
a  tall  poplar,  swaying  and  trembling  voluptuously  in  the  air. 
At  the  same  time  there  reached  my  ear  from  distant  Brussels 
.  .  .  the  soft,  murmuring  sounds  of  a  far  off  fete.  And 
thereupon  I  made  these  verses,  found  in  Sagesse." 

Page  137.  Of  Old  (Prologue).  Evidently  written  in  some 
hospital.  White  nights  are  sleepless  nights. 

Page  138.  Kaleidoscope.  An  unintelligible  jumble  of 
words — a  kaleidoscope,  as  the  title  implies.  Written  in  Belgium 
during  the  poet's  vagabond  days  with  Arthur  Rimbaud.  The 
line 

"And  the  women  with  copper  bound  close  to  their  brows," 
refers  to  the  use  of  a  metal  helmet,  or  casque,  worn  by  women 
laborers  in  that  country.  Lepelletier  says  the  poem  was  meant 
as  a  humorous  composition.     Lemaitre  calls  it  the  work  of  a 
madman  or  a  fool. 

Page  1 66.  False  Impression.  Written  in  the  prison  of  the 
Petits-Carmes,  Brussels,  July,  1873. 

Page  167.  Others.  Written  in  the  prison  of  Petits-Carmes, 
Brussels,  upon  wrapping  paper  purloined  from  the  cantine. 
The  "others"  were  prisoners  like  himself  with  whom,  once 
each  morning,  Verlaine  was  allowed  to  promenade  in  a  small 
paved  court,  under  the  eye  of  a  guard. 

Page  1 68.  Reversibles.  As  its  title  indicates,  this  poem 
may  be  read  backward  as  well  as  in  the  regular  order — the 
meaning  (if  any)  is  as  clear  one  way  as  the  other.  The  third 
and  fourth  lines  in  the  second  stanza  refer  to  an  arrangement 
of  the  chapel  in  the  prison  at  Mons — the  altar  having  been 
placed  in  a  peculiarly  shaped  alcove.  See  Verlaine's  Mes 
Prisons. 

Page  172.  Explanation.  Poem  referring  to  Arthur  Rim- 
baud. 


212  Paul  Ferlaine 

Page  175.     The  Impenitent.    The  last  line  in  this  poem  is 
as  follows: 

Si  nous  sommes  cet  amiteux. 

The  word  "amiteux"  is  argot.     There  is  no  equivalent  in 
English. 


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